


Mantle of Leadership

by JoeyTaylor



Series: Clanverse [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, Ombre
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-10
Updated: 2018-10-10
Packaged: 2019-07-29 07:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 63,996
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16259441
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JoeyTaylor/pseuds/JoeyTaylor
Summary: A holiday in India sounds like fun, sun, sightseeing and swimming pools... once they get get there of course.





	1. Nightmares

Yugi walked down a dark corridor, ruins of some kind, surrounded by shadows.

"What is this place?" Yugi asked, "Hello? Anyone there?"

He leapt back as something hit the ruins, knocking a few stones loose to land where he'd been standing a few moments before.

"Who's there?" He demanded angrily.

An angry grunt answered him, "Yami?"

"Yugi?" Yami spared him a glance; he had some kind of odd golden armour on.

"Where are we and what's with the weird outfit?"

"This isn't the best time for questions." Yami replied quickly attempting to dodge an attack from a shadowy arm. Yugi threw up an arm to protect himself from the shadows swirling around said arm, "Run, while you can!"

Yugi drew his wand as the shadows surrounded Yami, tightening and forming into a hand, gripping Yami so tightly that the Pharaoh cried out in pain.

"Stupify!" Yugi yelled, the spell shooting from the end of his wand and hitting the hand, rebounding and nearly hitting the hikari. "Let Yami go!" The heir shouted at the monster picking the Pharaoh up.

"Yami belongs to me now!" A voice echoed back at him.

"And who are you?" Yugi demanded. "And what do you want with Yami?"

"It will all become clear, just as soon as you join the game that is."

"What game? Hey!" Yugi rushed forward…

* * *

And fell out of bed.

"These nightmares are getting to become a pain… literally." Yugi complained quietly, as he rubbed his side, the sun streaming through his window.

"Yugi?" Yami asked, sitting up and looking at him blearily.

"I'm okay Yami. I just fell out of bed." Yugi looked at his desk. The Millennium Puzzle was flashing golden. "What's up with the Puzzle?"

Yami looked over to the desk, where their decks rested alongside the Millennium Puzzle, which was glowing erratically.

The Pharaoh, who had given his room to Ombre and had been sleeping on a camp bed in Yugi's room for the last week, frowned and got out of bed, picking it up, only to have it stop as he picked it up. "Huh…"

"Probably reacting to my nightmare…" Yugi sighed, "Sleep well?"

"Not bad." Yami shrugged, attempting to untangle himself from the bedding as Yugi dug out a fresh set of clothes that wasn't packed for their holiday in India, figuring he probably wouldn't get to sleep, "Ombre came in just as I was heading up, but Joey was still wide awake."

"So we probably won't see either of them till lunch time, right." Yugi nodded, "We'll have to make room for a second camp bed in here soon, Grandpa's due back from that consultancy work while we're away."

"Joey'll have to clear his stuff out of Grandpa's room."

"At least with the extension spells on our bags and things storage isn't an issue." Yugi pointed out as he hopped around the room, pulling his sock on. "I'll open up today."

"Eat first." Yami growled at him.

"I know, I know, what do you want?" Yugi waved him off, "Fry up? Cereal?" He asked as he reached the door, looking back at his dark half, who was giving him a look which made him sigh. "What?"

"You've been having nightmares since we got back."

"I know." Yugi sighed. "But I don't understand them."

"What do you remember?" Yami frowned.

"It will all become clear, just as soon as you join the game that is." Yugi quoted with a sigh. "What game, where and when aren't clear. They never are."

"Anything else?"

"If we end up in some ruins somewhere while it's dark be careful." Yugi shook his head, ill amused. "Sometimes I wish my dreams had a little more detail to them. It's all well and good me getting warnings, but they're as clear as mud."

"We'll get by, we normally do." Yami offered, reassuringly.

"True." Yugi shrugged. "I'm going to eat breakfast and open up the shop. You're on shop duty today as well."

"I'll be down in half an hour." Yami nodded.

Yugi smiled, well aware of how long it took Yami to wake up properly and shut the door behind him, leaving the Pharaoh to wonder if they were going to visit any ruins while in India, and if so if any of the trips were during the evening. Yugi wasn't the only one that sometimes wished that the Gods would send clearer warnings…

But then that hadn't helped Kari…

Yami shook his head, trying to clear his mind and block the sudden grief from reaching Yugi. It had been too fast and they'd failed to see it coming even with warnings…

 _"Yami, if you want a fry up you'd better come now!"_ Yugi's mental voice broke through his thoughts, _"Joey's threatening to eat all the bacon and Ombre's already called dibs on the mushrooms."_

' _I'll be there in a minute. Don't let them eat everything!'_

" _Help! Joey's kidnapped the bacon!"_

' _I'm coming, I'm coming!'_ Yami quickly got dressed, and entered the kitchen in time to see Yugi manage to grab the plate of bacon back from Joey, dash across the kitchen and distribute it evenly across the four plates.

"But I'm hungry!" Joey whined, sitting at the table.

"The eggs have another minute; you'll just have to wait." Yugi mock glared.

"But Yuge…"

"I'll eat Joey's eggs if he doesn't want them." Yami said, leaning on a work surface and making Ombre jump, since she hadn't noticed Yami enter the room. "Morning Joey, morning Ombre."

"Morning Yami." Both replied almost simultaneously.

"What time did you guys get to bed last night?"

"Three?" Joey hazarded, looking around for the ketchup as Yugi distributed the eggs. Yami chucked it to him and he managed to catch it, but squeezed it too tightly and ended up with ketchup down his top. "So glad I'm not on shop duty today."

"No, I went to bed at three." Yami shook his head, "So it has to be later then that."

"Three?" Yugi asked. Yami winced, recognising that tone. That was the 'you knew you had work in the morning' tone.

"I think it was quarter to five." Ombre shrugged, "I wasn't sleepy and kept Joey up longer then I should have done."

"How are you even awake?" Yami asked, looking at the clock.

"I haven't slept." Ombre shrugged.

"Ombre…" Yugi growled.

"I'll sleep this afternoon." Ombre shrugged off Yugi's concerned irritation.

"Serenity'll be here in a couple of hours." Joey grinned, "I can deal with only having a couple of hours sleep, when I'm meeting up with my sis."

"I can't believe we'll be going tomorrow." Yugi smiled, "It should be fun."

"Swimming pool here I come!" Joey grinned.

"You'll miss all the sightseeing if you stay in the pool the whole time." Yami warned. _'And I might join him.'_ Yami added, more to himself then anyone.

" _Yami!"_ Yugi giggled, having heard him.

' _What? You said for me to avoid ruins…'_

Yugi poked his tongue out at the Pharaoh who just pulled a funny face back.

"That's real mature guys." Joey snorted. "Do I want to know what started that off?"

"Nightmares." Yugi sighed.

"Again?" Joey frowned, "Not Marik?"

"No. I'd be less worried if it was Yami Marik disturbing my sleep." Yugi frowned. "It'll be okay. It's normally okay."

Joey and Ombre looked at each other as Yugi put his plate on the side, grabbed the keys and headed downstairs. "Has he told you anything?" Joey asked Yami, who was just getting up from the table himself.

"Not much. You know what his nightmares are like." Yami half sighed, half complained, "No coherency until after the fact. Just a warning that something's going to happen somewhere."

"It'll be fine, I'm sure." Joey sighed, yawning.

"Go meet up with Serenity, I'll set up the camp bed in my room." Ombre pushed Joey towards the door as Yami vanished downstairs to help Yugi open up.

"Thanks Ombre."

"No problem, now get. You know she worries when you're late."

"I'm getting, I'm getting."

Joey left, leaving Ombre alone in the upstairs flat. She sighed as she tidied around the kitchen so it looked presentable, and then went to her room.

Except she didn't really have a room anymore. This wasn't hers, it was Yami's, but he was letting her use it and him only referring to it as his room by accident didn't help, it just made her feel like she'd made him give up his room. This was a load of rubbish of course, but she still felt miserable.

' _Kari…'_ Ombre reached for a mind link that wasn't there anymore, forgetting again that there wasn't anyone to answer her and withdrew into herself when her call echoed down a hollow and dead link.

She appreciated Yugi's efforts to cheer her up, but she could see how down he was at the moment, even to the point of being so distracted during the Tournament last week that he'd nearly lost a crucial duel and it had taken a mental pep talk from Yami to get his head back into the game, that the hikari's efforts, while appreciated, just seemed hollow.

She set up the camp bed, then led down on her bed, to try to clear her thoughts and before too long the sleep that had been denied over night caught up to her and she slipped into a dream filled sleep.

* * *

"Serenity!"

Serenity grinned as she spotted her brother. The mousey brown haired teen waved to the tall, blonde, man who was wading through the crowd to reach her and picked up her bags. "Joey!"

He reached her side, and for a moment, she saw all the worry and grief he was feeling, and then it was pushed aside for the biggest grin Joey could possibly manage. "Hey, sis. How was graduation?"

"It feels odd." Serenity admitted as Joey led her away from the crowds and down the quietest route to the game's shop he could find. "Knowing that I'm never going to go back to school."

"Have you found a job yet?" Joey asked, nodding in understanding, though he was rather looking forward to getting away from Hogwarts, as long as it didn't mean losing contact with his family… oh… yeah…

"I start at the magical hospital in Tokyo when we get back, but now I'm old enough I can apperate here to Domino whenever I want." Serenity grinned. "And see my big brother whenever he isn't at Hogwarts!"

"Serenity, I need to tell you something." Joey hesitated. "Preferably before we get to the Game Shop."

"What's up?"

"Well, you know I've always called Yugi my brother?"

"Uh huh." She nodded, tilting her head so she could see him better. If she didn't know better, she would say he was nervous.

"Well you see, we actually became a family while we were away at Hogwarts, we joined together with our friends, Harry, Hermione and the gang, you remember them right?"

Serenity nodded, slightly confused.

"Well, we became Clan." Joey continued, "Which basically makes us family, and I was going to ask if you wanted in, but we miscalculated and anyone we owed a life debt to, was automatically added so…"

"I have lots of big brothers?" Serenity guessed. "And a few little brothers too?"

"Sorry."

"Why are you sorry? I've always said, a friend of yours was a friend of mine." Serenity frowned, "I'd have said yes to joining anyway." She shoved him playfully, "Like I'd say no to joining your family, no matter how odd the members are."

"You can't get much more weird then the Domino Clan." Joey acknowledged, "But don't tell Yuge I said that."

Serenity smiled and asked cautiously, "How is everyone?"

"It's hard." Joey sighed, "But we knew it would be."

"I'm sorry I couldn't be there."

Joey shrugged, "You didn't know her very well, but she was a really good friend and…" Joey just shook his head and they walked in silence for a while.

"I've improved my duelling since you last saw me." Serenity finally spoke up, catching Joey's attention.

"Oh yeah?"

"I figured that I should learn how to play the game well, if I'm going to be spending two weeks with you guys. Your answer to boredom always is a game of Duel Monsters."

"How much better?" Joey asked, intrigued and always happy to encourage his little sister.

"Lots, just you wait." She grinned, "I'll show you."

"Can't wait." Joey grinned back, "Do you need to get anything before the trip?"

She shook her head, "I picked up everything I needed."

"You'll be sharing a room with Ombre overnight, she should have set up the camp bed by now."

"I wouldn't have minded if I'd had to sleep on the floor." Serenity laughed, "I'm just looking forward to going."

"It'll be good for everyone." Joey nodded, "Just to get away from everything and relax for a while. No shop, no challengers, just a vacation with a few sightseeing trips," Joey stretched, "And maybe some five star food."

"Five star?"

"It was a Kaiba Corp prize after all." Joey sniggered.

"I bet that went down well."

"Seto didn't make the finals." Joey laughed. "He's out of practise."

"So are you." Serenity pointed out, "Or you were, I saw the Tournament last week, on TV."

"How'd I look?"

"Good, right up until you had to fight Yugi." Serenity laughed.

Joey shrugged it off, "I don't see me beating Yuge any time soon, the time I won back Red Eyes was a fluke."

"You can beat him again."

"Maybe, but not when it's important. Yuge gets more luck then I do and that's saying something."

"His magic perhaps?"

"It's not something he does deliberately." Joey protested.

"I didn't say it was. I was just thinking that maybe fate has a specific time and place for Yugi to lose."

"And it's never when I'm fighting him." Joey snorted. "You could be right, fate does like to play with them… here we are." Joey pointed to the Kame Game Shop which had a queue outside. The shop was too small to let them all in. "You mind if I help out? Tournament Season is always insane and Grandpa's on an archaeological dig of some kind, acting as an consultant of some kind. I think it's mostly a 'what's this' and 'what does this do' thing, but he seemed excited so…" Joey shrugged.

"No problem. Just point me in the direction of my room and go help. I'll bring lunch down later."

"Thanks sis."

"Any time Joey." She hugged him as he opened the back door and they headed upstairs, "Which one am I sharing with Ombre?"

* * *

Ombre wasn't completely awake when she stumbled into the kitchen at midday, to the smell of food.

There was a teenager with mousey brown hair darting around the kitchen, pouring out glasses of cola and finding trays for the plates, hazel eyes dancing as she shared out the food.

She had to pause and look again. The teen's body shape was all wrong, and she had similar face features to Joey… this had to be his sister then. "Hi."

"Hi. Ironhide Ombre, right?" The teen asked, smiling at her, "I'm Wheeler Serenity, we didn't get to meet properly the last time we saw each other. Joey wasn't expecting you to be awake for another couple of hours. Do you want your lunch now or would you like me to put it in the microwave?"

"Microwave, please." Ombre nodded, slightly taken aback by the chatter. "That's for the guys?"

"Uh huh." Serenity nodded as she attempted to carry all three trays down.

"Here, I got one." Ombre took one from her, earning herself a relieved look. "I thought Joey was going to spend the day with you."

"He was but the store got insanely busy, so I let him go and help Yami and Yugi out."

"I'll take over this afternoon." Ombre decided out loud. "Tournament Season's always insane."

"That's what Joey said." Serenity nodded. "You sure it's okay?"

"As long as there's someone around to help, they won't mind. Besides some of the customers know me so…" Ombre shrugged.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome uhh…"

"Serenity, please, we're family." Serenity said, recognising Ombre's awkwardness. The woman was unsure if it would be considered rude to use her first name since they didn't know each other very well.

"Ombre then, please." Ombre nodded, smiling slightly, "How long did it take Joey to tell you about the Clan?"

"About ten minutes." Serenity laughed, "I don't mind being part of the family, but he was so nervous about it."

"He didn't even tell Mai when we were at the Tournament." Ombre snorted, "Yugi did it instead. I don't think she was quite sure how to take it at first."

"Well it was a surprise, but it's a good one." Serenity grinned, "I'm sure she'll come around."

"Oh she came around alright," Ombre grinned, "But she pretended to be irritated at Joey all day, because he'd been too nervous to tell her."

Serenity laughed and for a moment, Ombre enjoyed a laugh that wasn't subdued by suppressed grief, or worry or concern, and was just a natural laugh. Then they were in the shop, and the customers were calling for assistance even though they were carrying trays. Ombre shoved hers into Joey's hands and pushed him towards the store room, while Serenity handed Yugi and Yami theirs and turned to look at the crowds, slightly nervous.

"Just serve those paying." Ombre advised, "I'll deal with the queries."

"But I've never…"

"Think of it as on the job training." Ombre called back, and turned to the nearest customer, "Can I help you sir?"

* * *

It was half past nine by the time that they'd closed the store, counted up the money, locked away the cash drawer, finished packing, made tea, eaten it and finally had a chance to sit down.

Yugi sat on one arm of an armchair, Yami on the other and they leant back on each other and sank into the chair, a habit they'd picked up at Hogwarts, when there had been very little space around the fire, while Ombre had a whole armchair to herself and Serenity and Joey took over the sofa.

"Thank the Gods that that is over for a while." Yami breathed, "Another day like that and I'd've gone insane."

"It was much busier then normal." Joey frowned.

"Probably because of the big sign in our window hat told them we'd be closing for a couple of days." Yugi pointed out. "At least until Grandpa gets home."

"The students should be back then too." Yami nodded, "So Grandpa'll have plenty of people to help while we're on holiday."

"I can't believe we leave tomorrow." Serenity grinned, excited.

"It'll be great." Yugi nodded.

"What do you want to watch?" Joey asked, swiping the TV remote off of the table.

"Remembering that we have to leave the house at ten tomorrow." Yami warned.

"I know, I know." Joey waved it off. "Just one DVD?"

"Which one?"

"This one." Joey picked a fantasy film off of the shelf.

"That's three hours long!" Yugi protested.

"A hundred and seventy one minutes actually. Besides we're all packed aren't we?" Joey asked, "Passports ready? Emergency snackage prepared?" Everyone laughed at the last question, "So why not?"

"Oh all right." Yugi shrugged, "But I might fall asleep during it."

"S'ok, I'll wake you up before I go to bed." Yami promised.

"Do we have any popcorn?"

"You can't possibly be… never mind." Yami sighed, remembering who he was talking to, "Top cupboard, second from the right."

A few minutes later, Joey was back with popcorn and the film fest began.

* * *

Ombre opened her eyes and smiled.

They'd all fallen asleep watching the film and the Muto living room would have been pitch black if it wasn't for the flickering TV and the light radiating from Yugi, Yami's heir and hikari, or rather the Puzzle that the young man was wearing.

Her friends had fallen asleep around the room, unmoved from their positions when the film had started, with Yugi and Yami sharing a chair, Joey and Serenity were still asleep on the sofa, and she stood up and stretched, trying to loosen up, as sleeping in the chair hadn't been particularly comfortable.

Ombre was about to start waking the others when the light from the Puzzle grew erratic and Ombre heard Yugi mutter something, a frown gracing his usually placid features.

 _Nightmares again._ She didn't have a chance to wake him before he bolted out of the chair, still half asleep and didn't wake up properly before he hit the floor, dislodging Yami, who fell backwards and hit his back on the arm rest the other side before waking, and managed to wake both Joey and his sister with his yelp as Yugi hit the ground.

"Yuge?" Joey asked, about seventy percent asleep, while hitting the touch switch lamp on the table.

"Sorry guys." Yugi apologised, getting to his feet.

"Nightmares again?" Yami asked with a frown.

"You saw it that time, didn't you?" Yugi asked.

Yami merely nodded, thinking.

"What was it about?" Ombre asked, startling the guys who hadn't realised she'd woken up.

"I don't know, some shadowy monster we were fighting, and then it goes on about me joining a game…" Yugi shook his head, "I don't know what it's talking about, unless it means there's a Shadow Game I have to play."

"Not on your own." Yami growled.

"Like I'd even try to tell you guys not to come anymore." Yugi snorted.

"What time is it, Yuge?" Joey asked with a yawn, they'd had this discussion before, he was not particularly found of it, since it normally dissolved into an argument and refusing to be drawn into it at ridiculous o'clock in the morning.

"Three am." Yugi yawned.

"I'm going back to sleep then." Joey decided, standing up and heading for the bedroom. "Don't wake me till eight."

"It'll be seven if you're lucky." Yami laughed, heading for Yugi's room, "Both Ombre and Yugi are early risers."

"Where as you never get out of bed," Yugi laughed, "But night guys." The two Mutos vanished to their room.

"Night Ombre, night Serenity." Joey waved and vanished into Solomon's room.

Serenity gave her an inquisitive look, and Ombre found herself explaining about Yugi's track record with nightmares, as they got changed, finding her audience surprisingly receptive and understanding.

Once she'd explained everything and Serenity had settled down to sleep or think, Ombre wasn't sure which, the Princess led back and was surprised to find it wasn't hard for her to get back to sleep again.

They had a big day ahead of them tomorrow.

* * *

"We're going on vacation, time for relaxation; no more aggravation, lots of recreation! We're going on vacation, time for relaxation…" Joey had started singing that in the taxi, somehow getting Serenity and Yugi to join in with him about halfway there and hadn't stopped until they'd reached Kaiba Corp.

"Joey?" Yami asked, as Joey staggered, "What exactly have you got in that backpack?"

"Well, with the way our luck runs, it's better to be over prepared then not prepared enough." Joey said, "I have food, sleeping bags, extra clothes, hair stuff, toothpaste, spare toothbrushes…"

"Wow." Yugi looked impressed, "No wonder you have trouble picking that bag up."

One of Kaiba's goons was waiting for them on the ground floor and led them up to the top floor, where Seto was waiting. "You ready?" He asked, gesturing towards the desk, where a blue crystal was stood on a plinth. "I had the Ministry set it up. It'll be active in around a minute, and will activate again in two weeks time. So anyone running behind will be left in India, got it?"

"Got it." Everyone nodded.

"Your passports will be inspected upon arrival at the Indian Ministry of Magic, and once you're done there, there will be a limo waiting outside for you to take you to your hotel."

Yugi grinned at Yami, who looked at the CEO and then at the crystal, "Portkey?" He asked.

"That's right." Kaiba nodded. He looked pointedly at the clock and everyone made sure to hold their bags tightly and touched the gem.

Then it felt like they were being pulled by their noses, to their destination, a feeling Yami didn't particularly enjoy, but it was still better then flying by plane.

At least until the crystal shattered for no reason that the Pharaoh could see and they were suddenly dropped, rather unceremoniously at the side of some lake in the middle of nowhere.

At least some of them were, Joey managed to somehow end up in the lake.

"I'm pretty sure this isn't where we're supposed to be." Yami frowned, looking around and helping Yugi to his feet.

Ombre flipped open her mobile phone. It was like Harry's in that it had a connection to the Kaiba Corp network, they'd all been given one when they'd left Kaiba's plane upon landing at Domino International Airport.

There was no signal… that couldn't be right… Kaiba Corp's network was hitched up to their satellites, they were supposed to have world wide coverage… that wasn't all, the screen was playing up, showing many colours and scrolling text… had it broken in the fall?

"You alright Serenity?" Yugi asked, offering her a hand up.

"The Portkey shouldn't have broken like that." Yami was saying to Joey.

"Guys, check your phones."

They did, ending up with much the same result that Ombre had had, causing Joey to use some of Ron's favourite swear words and Yami to look around, trying to think.

"We could try flying." Yugi offered. "We have our dragons…"

"What about Serenity?"

"Teach me the spell, I have a dragon." She said, drawing her wand, "We're not likely to be found all the way out here if your phones aren't working and the crystal broke."

Yugi settled down to teach Serenity Apparaître, as Yami and Joey looked around.

"What could cause a Portkey to break like that midway through transport?" Joey asked the Pharaoh,

Yami shrugged, he had no idea. Well, maybe one, since their phones weren't working. He opened his backpack and pulled out the silver coloured Dragonwing handheld console that Kari had given him just before they'd gone to Hogwarts. It was a piece of Kaiba Cop tech that was out of date now, but it would check something for him.

"Yami, I don't think now is the time for games."

"I know I charged this." He said, as he attempted to turn it on.

Nothing.

"Check yours." Yami frowned.

Joey attempted to turn on his black one, only to find that he had the same problem.

Then Yami cast the spell that allowed technology to work in a highly magically charged area.

And it turned on.

"Ombre, what was that spell Kari used to use to get a signal out through magical disruption?" Yami asked.

Ombre winced at her hikari's name, but tried to think. Had she ever actually asked what the spell she used was, or had she just let Kari and Seto get on with it, not daring to think for even a moment that there would be a moment that they would need it, that Kari wouldn't be at her side… "I'm sorry, I don't know."

"I think the only ones who know the spell are Kaiba, Hermione and…" Joey sighed as everyone's heads went down.

"So what do we do?" Yugi asked, pausing in his lesson.

"Summon our dragons and find civilisation." Joey said, "It's about all we can do. Or at least fly until our phones get a signal…"

The bushes rustled and a man burst out of the bushes, looking like he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards.

Yami and Joey were moving between the man and their friends, when the man collapsed.

Serenity rushed over, Yugi at her side, "Does anyone have any water?" She asked, casting a diagnostic spell, then hiding her wand, prompting the others to do the same.

Joey handed over his bottle of water and took a good look at the man.

He wasn't exactly a small man, with dirty, greasy blonde hair that looked like it hadn't been washed in days, and carrying a rather large bag, which had all sorts of equipment poking out.

Ombre helped him sit up as Serenity examined the man, who was gulping down the water in the bottle.

"Who are you?" He asked, nervously, in English.

"I'm Trainee Nurse Serenity Wheeler, the others are my family." Serenity answered in the same language, "Are you feeling any better?"

"I am, thank you." The man said, "Much better in fact."

Serenity wasn't sure she believed him, but she didn't dare use her wand in front of him, since there was little chance of a Wizard being all the way out here.

The man shifted to get a little more comfortable and out of his jacket fell a piece of cloth. It was black, with two white symbols on it.

Yami turned to look at Yugi, when he felt Yugi's terror, realising where it had come from when he saw what Yugi was holding. "Where did you get that?" Yami asked of the man, putting a supporting hand on Yugi's shoulder.

"Why do you ask?"

"Because it looks like our Grandfather's bandana."

"You two must be Yugi and Yami Muto, Doctor Muto's Grandsons, am I correct?" He asked and, when they nodded, he continued, "My name is Doctor Alex Brisbane. I'm an archaeologist who was working alongside your Grandfather."

"Is he okay?" Yugi asked, fearful of the answer.

"I don't know how to put this." Alex hesitated, "I've gone on many trips with your Grandfather since you went to that boarding school, but a day and a half ago, your Grandfather just… disappeared."

"What?"

"No!"

" _Not Grandpa…please…"_ Yami caught his hikari's desperate plea and turned to Alex, fists clenched into fists.

Alex stood up, seeing the groups' reactions. "Your Grandfather is my Mentor as well as a dear friend. I can show you where he disappeared, if you follow me."

"Alright." Yami nodded.

They gathered their bags quickly, but Ombre hung back, wondering why Dr Brisbane had thought to ask about how they'd gotten here, or why they had all this luggage with no cars or helicopters…

" _Yami… we might be walking into a trap."_ Yugi thought, glancing sideways at his dark as they walked through the woods, following Dr Brisbane, _"But we have to save Grandpa. I can't lose him."_

' _I know Yugi, this is all really suspicious though. Our Portkey happened to break and drop us here and we run into the last man to see Grandpa before he vanished…'_

" _It all screams trap, doesn't it."_

' _Indeed.'_

" _I'll be careful, but I'm going to find him. I'm not going home until he's safe."_

' _Neither am I.'_

" _Good."_ Yugi paused, _"Anyone wanna bet we're heading towards some ruins?"_

' _Harry would take you up on that if he was here.'_

" _No, Harry doesn't take sucker bets."_

' _No that's more Ron's thing.'_

" _Yami, be nice."_

Yugi sighed as Yami chuckled in his head, but it stopped abruptly when they reached a cliff edge, "There it is." Dr Brisbane said, pointing to something below them, "The reason Dr Muto and myself came here."

There were four gasps as they took in the sight. "A Pyramid? Here?" Yami asked, "But we're hundreds of miles from Egypt!"

"That's one of the mysteries that drew us here." Dr Brisbane said, "My theory is that this is the legendary pyramid of Alexander."

"Alexander?" Joey asked.

"Alexander the Great, of course." Dr Brisbane led them down the cliff face. "About two thousand years ago, he was the leader of the greatest empire the world had ever known." He said as they walked the stone path towards the Pyramid's entrance, "This masterful warrior and brilliant strategist conquered nation after nation."

He looked back at Yami and Ombre, "I heard you two were interested in Egypt, so you'll both be interested to know that at one point he controlled Egypt, making him one of the Great Pharaohs."

Yami's eyes widened for a spilt second and a frown crossed Ombre's face before clearing again.

"I guess that explains the Pyramid." Joey said slowly, wondering how much this guy knew.

"But why would it be built here?" Ombre asked.

"That's what we were trying to find out when Dr Muto vanished." Dr Brisbane said with a sigh, "We both went in, but only one of us came out."

"So Grandpa's still in there?" Yugi yelped.

"If you follow me, I can show you exactly where I last saw him." They moved to the door.

The hallway inside was pitch black and Dr Brisbane looked around before gesturing to Yugi who walked over, with a confused look. "How many of you are Witches and Wizards?" Dr Brisbane whispered.

Yugi blinked in slight confusion.

He showed Yugi his wand. "I know about Hogwarts, how many of you are students?"

"We're all witches or wizards." Yugi said, loudly enough for the others to hear.

"Good." Dr Brisbane drew his wand, causing Yami to react instantly, drawing his own and moving between Dr Brisbane and his hikari. "Easy Yami, I was just about to cast Lumos."

Yami nodded, and Joey, Serenity and Ombre drew their own wands. "Lumos." All five of them said, their wands lighting up. Yugi drew his own wand and copied them before they entered the corridor.

"Everyone stick together," Dr Brisbane told them, "We must remain together as a group."

"So much for a relaxing vacation." Joey complained.

No one answered but everyone wheeled around as Joey yelped.

Yugi realised with wide eyes that if he'd been just a couple of centimetres further back, he would have been impaled on spikes. "Are you alright Joey?" He asked, as he realised Joey would have been impaled if he was a few centimetres further forward.

"Be careful, there are dangerous traps at every turn." Dr Brisbane said rather belatedly.

"You think?" Joey snapped at him.

They edged up the stairs, standing on the flat ramp instead of the stairs, which Dr Brisbane had warned them off in case they collapsed and reached the edge of a pit with similar spikes to the ones that had nearly impaled Yugi and Joey.

"We'll have to shimmy along that ledge." Dr Brisbane was about to leap up to grab it when Ombre shook her head.

"I have a better idea. Nox." She extinguished her wand and drew a card, "Apparaître Red Eyes Darkness Dragon!" She called as she pointed to it with her wand.

The Dragon appeared. It wasn't as small as Shadowfae, but it was nowhere near full size, just big enough to be able to extend its wings in the wide corridor without too much trouble. "Carry us across." Ombre ordered, sending Yugi across first, then Serenity and then the others, one at a time, going last herself before returning her monster to its card.

"How did you…?" Dr Brisbane stared at her.

"It's a spell my hi…sister came up with originally for duels, we discovered that if you were a little too over enthusiastic with the spell then you got monster that was quite a bit bigger then normal, but that wasn't able to do more then follow basic commands, but is useful for situations like that one." Ombre said quietly. "Can we please go and find Mr Muto."

"This is room where I last saw him." Dr Brisbane said, as they reached a room with three exits, one the way they'd come, one leading up and one leading down.

"Grandpa?" Yugi and Yami yelled.

"Mr Muto?" Ombre called.

"Mr Muto?" Serenity tried.

"Gramps?" Joey shouted.

"It's no use, I tried that for hours and there was no reply."

"Did you see him disappear?" Yugi asked quietly.

"No, we split up. I went up and Dr Muto was going to see what was on this floor, but I ran into a door I couldn't open and came back down. He wasn't here so I thought I'd check the floor below but when I reached the bottom of the stairs, all I found was Dr Muto's bandana." Yami put his hand on his Hikari's shoulder, "And just like that he was gone." Yugi went pale. "I'm sorry, Yugi, Yami, but your Grandfather seems to have vanished into thin air."

Joey growled, the light from the wand tips not improving the look on his face any, "Look, we may still be witches and wizards, but I know enough to know that even if Gramps knows how to Apparate, he wouldn't go without leaving some sort of message."

"Where exactly did you find Grandpa's bandana?" Yami asked.

"Follow me." Dr Brisbane led them down the steps and into a huge room.

"The floor looks like a map." Yami said, looking at it carefully.

"I wonder if Mr Muto found this room before he vanished." Ombre wondered out loud.

"Let's stop standing here and look around." Joey ran down the last couple of steps and stood on one of the squares…

Before vanishing in a bright golden light.

"What?" Ombre yelped.

"Joey!" Yugi rushed down the steps, followed by Yami and Ombre.

Yugi knelt down and examined the map square, "It's a mountain…"

"And that one's a forest, and ones over there are desert…" Yami said taking a careful look himself.

"A map with different land types…" Yugi puzzled, "Where have we seen this before?"

"Well," Dr Brisbane started, "According to my research, this Pyramid is home to some sort of ancient game."

"I'm going in." Yugi said and, without hesitating, stepped onto a tile with a picture of a forest on it.

"Yugi!" Yami yelped, extinguishing his wand and following.

"You're not seriously going in there?" Dr Brisbane yelped.

"We're going after our brothers." Ombre growled, "Right, Serenity?"

"Right." Serenity nodded, and the two girls extinguished the light from their wands.

The pair stepped forward and onto the same forest that Yugi and Yami had vanished into.

And then they too vanished in a bright light.


	2. A Brand New Game

"Gramps! Serenity! Yugi! Yami! Ombre!"

Joey growled and looked around.

It had to be said that he had arrived in a place with a rather stunning view. From here he could see right down to the ocean, which seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see.

However, this wasn't a particularly helpful thing, since he had no idea where to start looking for anyone and his only route down was to climb down the canyon walls…

"Great, one of these days I'm going to think before I do something." He grumbled as he looked over the edge, contemplating his best route down… jumping wasn't a viable option. He hated heights with a passion and that hadn't helped. "At least my suitcase is in the real world…"

Something squawked behind him and he wheeled around just in time to dive under a swooping Whiptail Crow.

"Duel Monsters… but real…?" Joey automatically went for his deck as the huge bird wheeled around for a second attempt, "Why is nothing ever normal?" He snarled, rolling sideways and avoiding the attack, "Apparaître Red Eyes Black Dragon!" He bellowed, touching wand to deck.

Nothing happened.

"What?" Joey had time to yelp and then he was grabbed by the Whiptail Crow. "Put me down you feather duster!" He complained, "Put me down, put me down, put me down!" Then he looked down. "Wait, don't let me go!"

Of course the next thing Whiptail Crow did was drop him.

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!"

* * *

Yami scowled as he looked around.

' _Yugi?'_ He tried calling over the link, not particularly wanting to make to much noise in an unknown forest in some game that they didn't even know the rules to yet. Something told him that would be akin to having a sign over his head that flashed multiple colours and shouted 'I am here' to every enemy piece in the area.

Not something he particularly wanted to risk.

' _Yugi, can you hear me?'_ Yami kicked a tree in frustration when he had no reply, wondering if Yugi was  able to reply. They had to have ended up in the same region, they'd stepped on the same tile, but he had no idea just how big the region was, or whether Yugi had run into trouble already…

Stupid thought, of course Yugi had run into trouble already, if anything he was surprised he hadn't yet, the pair of them seemed to attract trouble. The only one they knew who was a bigger trouble magnet was their other link partner, Harry.

He carried on walking down the river, figuring it was the best course of action, and figuring that Yugi would figure to do the same, since it was the best bet of finding civilisation if you got lost in the wilderness… now who'd told him that…?

Yami shook his head and smiled slightly, it was probably Hermione or…

Yami stopped for a moment, sighing, and considering everything. It didn't seem right to him that Doctor Brisbane hadn't gone down into the game room and been dragged into the game. If he really had looked for their grandfather, then he should have looked everywhere, including that room.

" _Yami?"_ The Pharaoh's head shot up at the sound of Yugi's mental voice and the sudden concern and worry that he could sense from his hikari.

' _Yugi, where are you?'_

" _Uhhh…"_ Yami snorted at Yugi's reply, _"I would recommend that you find some capsules."_

' _Capsules?'_ Yami asked. When Yugi sent him an image, he looked around to see if there were any nearby.

" _Uh huh. It seems we've walked straight into a game of Capsule Monsters; you have to release the monsters from the capsules. I've picked up a Celtic Guardian."_ Yugi paused and Yami sensed the mental equivalent of Yugi biting his lower lip, _"Be warned, what the monsters feel, we feel."_

' _So this is some kind of Shadow Game…'_

" _Uh huh."_

' _Great, just great…'_ Yami could sense Yugi's amusement at his irritation. _'It's not funny.'_

" _I know, I…"_ Yugi cut off suddenly and Yami sensed his sudden fear and shock.

' _Yugi?'_

* * *

"Joey!"

"Yugi! Yami! Mr Muto!"

The two girls had no idea where they were, and there was no sign of the guys. This was not a good start.

"Where are we?" Serenity asked.

"I don't know." Ombre replied, scowling and pulling out her wand, "Point me, Solomon Muto."

Ombre knew what the spell was supposed to do; she'd helped Kari learn it for the last task of the Triwizard Tournament. It was supposed to spin around and stop in the direction of the person or thing that she'd told it to.

It was not supposed to waver in her hand and then lie flat and do nothing.

"Point me Muto Solomon." Ombre tried again, still nothing. "Point me Muto Yugi." Nothing, "Point me Wheeler Joseph." Nothing, "Point me Muto Yami…" Still nothing. "Why isn't that…?"

"We've been portkeyed into the middle of nowhere," Serenity pointed out, "Maybe magic doesn't work here."

"Or whoever keyed us here did something to us." Ombre growled, looking around and considering their options.

"So what do we do?" Serenity asked. "We need to find our brothers."

"And Solomon, if he's here." Ombre nodded, "I guess the only thing we can do is look. Yami and Yugi should be around here somewhere, they stepped on the same tile we did…"

"So shouldn't they be here?" Serenity asked.

"You'd have thought so, but then knowing Yugi he wandered off to find Joey and Mr Muto, and knowing Yami, he would have gone looking for Yugi…"

"So they could be anywhere…" Serenity sighed.

"I wouldn't worry, the guys are good at getting in and out of trouble and they're pretty good at finding each other. I got kidnapped last summer and taken to an island in the middle of nowhere and they still managed to find me, rescue Yugi and defeat the bad guy." Ombre tried to be reassuring.

"Do you guys ever get a normal summer?"

"What's normal?" Ombre snorted, wondering which way to go. She stilled as she heard something in the trees, looking over her right shoulder.

"Ombre?"

"Quiet a…" Ombre pulled Serenity aside as a Basic Insect leapt out at them from the trees and wheeled around, using her magic to push the bug away. "Talk later, run now."

* * *

' _Yugi?'_

Yugi was already loading Celtic Guardian capsule into his launcher, trying to ignore Yami's voice in order to focus completely on the fact that two of the trees he'd been walking past had just turned into monsters.

"Launch Capsule!" Yugi ordered. His Celtic Guardian should be stronger then the trees, if he remembered correctly, so it was fine… Green light shot out, forming into his monster, which blocked the next branch's swipe at Yugi.

Celtic Guardian parried its next few blows in an attempt to protect Yugi.

' _What's going on?'_

" _In battle a minute… argh…"_ Yugi cried out as Celtic Guardian got slammed by one of the branches.

' _Yugi!'_

Yugi didn't have time to answer as several other trees turned into Monsters. "There's too many!" Yugi yelped as he stood back to back with his monster. Celtic Guardian did its best but one of the branches wrapped around his leg, pulling him to the ground, and another wrapped around its neck.

Yugi started forward to help him, but the branch tightened around Celtic Guardian's neck, making it difficult for the Duel Monster to breathe.

And of course, what the Duel Monster felt, the Duellist felt.

Yugi froze; his hand going to his neck as if to pry away the branch, giving the tree monsters time to get a branch around Yugi's leg and drag him down.

"Celtic… Guardian…" Yugi croaked.

The Duel Monster tried to cry out, but the branch tightened even further, cutting of the protest midway through, branches from other trees wrapping around Celtic Guardian's arms and legs and trying to pull the warrior type monster limb from limb.

Yugi gave voice to the scream that Celtic Guardian couldn't let out.

"Hinotama Soul! Quickly!" A small fire shot past Yugi and slammed into the trees, which relinquished their grip on Yugi and Celtic Guardian as they burnt to a cinder.

"Celtic Guardian!" Yugi wheeled around to look at his Duel Monster, who accepted his hand up and then returned to his capsule.

"Are you alright?"

Yugi turned to look at his rescuer, "Thank you Yami."

"That's not an answer."

"I'm ok, thanks to you."

"You're sure?" Yami asked as he tried to calm down, Yugi's scream had terrified him.

"Yes." Yugi smiled reassuringly, "I'm sure. I'm fine now."

The word oops sprang to mind as Yami gave him an odd look.

"We seriously need to get over this aversion to the word 'fine'." Yugi sighed at him.

Yami returned his monster to its capsule. "It doesn't help that you use it even when you're not fine, Yugi. Harry does exactly the same thing."

"So do you!" Yugi pointed out.

Yami grumbled something that Yugi didn't catch, but the hikari let it slide in favour of looking around. "We need to find Grandpa and the others before something happens to them."

"I know."

"Plus side." Yugi said brightly, "We have our packs. That means we have first aid kits, emergency supplies…"

"You were predicting trouble too?"

"Yami this is us, when don't we run into trouble of some kind? I'd like to remind you that Hogwarts is supposed to be the safest place in Britain and yet…"

"I really think that claim is over rated." Yami scowled, "Unless there's someone deliberately letting the bad guys past the defences."

"Dumbledore." Yugi sighed.

"Why do we go back there again?"

"Because I can't afford a tutor?"

"Most of what wand magic can do, shadow magic can do better."

"Because we have family there?"

"Point." Yami sighed.

"Besides, it's not so bad, at least we don't get chased around by fangirls at Hogwarts."

Yami face palmed.

Yugi laughed, recognising that he'd managed to distract Yami enough to let him calm down. "Come on, let's find the others."

* * *

Joey was hiding in a cave behind a waterfall, his new friend, a Baby Dragon that he'd released from a capsule looking thing, having just escaped from a flock of Whiptail Crows.

"Man," Joey ran a hand through his hair, "That was a close one, hey pal?"

Baby Dragon gave him a questioning look, tilting its head and giving its best impression of a roar. Joey grinned at it. "I missed having the real monsters around…" He murmured, turning to look around.

The Duel Monsters had decided to head home for a while, taking whatever routes they took back to the Monster World the day after the funeral and planning on returning the sometime during the week that they returned from India.

Except they weren't in India… well they were, but he didn't really think this game world counted.

Joey tried to hide his irritation about their interrupted vacation from his dragon as he cautiously walked towards the chest that was in the centre of the room.

Not that he didn't want the treasure inside but too many years of experience with magic had taught him that you couldn't take much at face value.

"So what do you think is inside?" He asked the Dragon, though he was more thinking out loud then really asking for the Wind attribute monster's opinion.

Joey flipped the lid on the red and gold treasure chest, the eye symbol on the catch reminded him of the eye on the Millennium Puzzle, making him more then a little nervous as whatever was inside started to glow.

Something shot out of the chest, wrapping itself tightly around Joey and squeezing tightly. "Baby Dragon…"

The dragon, who was still one of Joey's favourite monsters, didn't need anymore prompting, though Joey quickly wished it had, as he incinerated the scroll with his fire breath, causing Joey to dive underneath the spray… "Hot! Hot! Hot!"

The chest glowed a second time, causing Joey to prepare to duck this time, however this time the light solidified into a piece of papyrus which had some kind of markings on… Joey examined it carefully.

He didn't recognise most of the writing though, from the few symbols he did, he could guess that Yugi or Yami would be able to, but if he was right about the layout of the images on it, this was a map of the game world…

He headed outside, Baby Dragon in tow, to see if his theory was correct.

* * *

To say Seto Kaiba was ill amused would be a lie.

To say that he was completely and utterly pissed off would come much closer to the truth, but would still be an understatement, but it was only Mokuba would could see just how angry he was as successfully controlled his temper in order to deal with the investigators from the Japanese Ministry.

He'd had a call to his office, from the Indian Ministry, telling him that his guests had not arrived at the pre arranged time and place, and if they weren't coming, he could have been so kind as to tell them as they had much more important things to be doing.

Since Seto had seen them take the portkey and leave, he had immediately informed them that had to have been an error with the portkey and perhaps they would be better off looking for the missing people.

Of course, not trusting another country's government after the way the American Ministry had acted and the corruption that was racing through the English one, he called in both his own people and the Japanese Ministry.

Unfortunately the 'Aurors' that had shown up, had decided that he had tampered with the portkey in some way and had just wasted six hours trying to prove this fact and now it had been disproved, were claiming that the incident had happened outside of their realm of influence.

Perhaps it wasn't a foreign thing; perhaps it was just that all Ministries were this incompetent…

Fortunately for the Aurors that had been wasting so much time, the Japanese equivalent of an 'Unspeakable' was called in to trace the portkey's magic using a blue sphere of some kind, and was now following it to see where the trail went.

This, to Seto, was progress, but not fast enough. He knew his brothers all too well, if there was danger or a way to get into trouble, or if the world needed saving, there would be some way that they would accidently stumble right into the middle of it…

Pre-Hogwarts he would have considered telling them to stop saving the world and get a hobby, but since every time Yugi and Yami tried to play their hobby another lunatic tried to take over the world, Seto had wondered more then once if they would be safer locked away from the world for the rest of eternity.

Except then they'd have gotten bored and bored was worse then trouble for this pair, since bored inevitably equal 'practising magic' which if they weren't careful often equalled property destruction (Seto was thinking of Boh and the train, or the Battle Royale at the end of term, though technically that hadn't been Yugi and Yami's fault, but was a great example of what happened if you locked the 'twins' away).

His brothers and sisters were missing… one reason to be irritated.

He'd been falsely accused of trying to make them vanish…. another one.

It was likely that they'd gotten into trouble or had been kidnapped for some reason… another one.

Seto had many reasons for working up into the ire he was currently feeling and it wasn't helped when two hours later, he was informed that the portkey's magic had run out in a clearing in the middle of nowhere and did he recognise this?

Of course Seto recognised it. How could he not?

The Auror was holding up Yami's Dark Magician card.

There was more then one Dark Magician in the world, there was even more then one type of Dark Magician using the same name, the red one, the blue one and the purple one, but he knew that card, had seen it in battle so many times, had faced it down almost as many…

It was Yami's…

And Yami would never have left it behind willingly…

So where were his family?

Mokuba slipped out of the room as Seto started organising a search party. He had phone calls to make. If family members were going missing again, Mokuba needed to spread the word, not let everyone hear about it later.

He looked through his list of phone numbers on his mobile. He'd promised Rebecca, Luna and Ginny that he'd keep them up to date if trouble hit, Hermione would deck him if he didn't inform her, Ron he could tell at the same time as Ginny… Mokuba was glad his brother had thought of the phones, making it easy to reach the entire family if it was needed, without waiting weeks for a reply, like you had to with letters.

The first thing his big brother had done, after Seto had put down the phone to the Indian Ministry, was attempt to ring Yugi… well… he'd tried all their numbers, but the only message he'd gotten was 'I'm sorry, but this person's phone is currently switched off', which had only added to Seto's irritability.

Mokuba picked the first number he came across, waiting as the phone rang and then speaking in clear, slightly accented English, "Hello Hermione…"

"Mokuba?" Hermione sounded shocked, he wasn't surprised, considering that she and Mokuba were family, yes, but they hadn't really spoken one to one, "Alright spill it, what's happened? I thought this was the day everyone went to India."

Mokuba sighed; trust Hermione, "It is, but there's been a problem…"

* * *

Of all the monsters they could have ended up with to fight this Grasschopper, Gigantes and Mystical Elf were not anywhere near the list of preferred ones. They weren't even honourable mention, though to be fair to Serenity's elf, if she hadn't healed Ombre's rock warrior, Ombre would have been down one monster already.

And unlike earlier, when they hadn't even considered picking up monsters, there were no capsules in sight.

Ombre pulled Joey's little sister behind her. She'd failed one young woman; she wouldn't fail to protect another, "Gigantes, attack!"

"Ombre, no!"

"ALRIGHT, SUMMONED SKULL. LIGHTENING STRIKE!" Someone roared and seconds later lightening struck causing the huge mantis like creature to scream and then explode.

Ombre wheeled around as the huge Fiend type stood in front of them, considering them for a moment, before looking away as if listening to a voice only it could hear, possibly that of its master and vanished in a ball of light.

"Who was…" Serenity started.

"Serenity, Ombre, what are you doing here?" Solomon asked, pushing his way through the bushes to their left and staring at them as if they were aliens. "You're supposed to be on holiday."

"Mr Muto?" Ombre looked just as shocked, though she'd known he was in the game somewhere, "That was your Summoned Skull?"

"How many times do I have to tell you, 'it's okay to call me Grandpa', before it sink's in?" Solomon sighed, "And yes, that was my fiend, are you girls alright?"

"We're okay." Serenity nodded, as the girls recalled their monsters, "But the boys are missing."

"Let me guess, Yugi, Yami and Joey are with you?"

"That's right." Ombre nodded. "We got split up."

The three of them paused as they heard the sound of heavy breathing, turning to look down the path as Yami and Yugi paused as they caught sight of them, then before anyone saw Yugi move, he'd glomped his Grandfather, causing Solomon to groan, Yugi wasn't as small as he'd once been and he'd grown taller then his Grandfather, not that that could be considered hard.

"You're safe!" Yugi sounded so relieved that Ombre smiled slightly, "Don't ever scare me like that again."

Solomon chuckled as Yugi let go, looking at his second Grandson.

"I'm pleased to see you are safe and well." Yami smiled.

That was enough for Solomon. He knew Yami wasn't one for overly emotional displays and that natural smile was more then a lot of people got out of the Pharaoh.

"Have you found Joey yet?" Serenity asked, looking down when she saw Yugi's shoulders sink and Yami shake his head.

"We'll find him." Yami sounded confident, "Joey's tough, he'll be fine until we meet up with him."

"How did you lot get here?" Solomon demanded.

* * *

Harry had known something was wrong the moment that his, strained as it was, link to Yami and Yugi had gone completely. The phone call had only confirmed this.

"We wouldn't be any help Harry." Sirius tried to reason with his Godson, who had been acting irritable for the last few hours, needing an explanation for the sudden loss of the currently tenuous link that connected him to the Muto 'twins', but unable to reach anyone's phones.

He knew what day it was. Today was the day that they'd been due to go on holiday to India, which meant that the Game Shop was empty so he couldn't call there and he had already tried their mobile numbers, which he had gotten off of Yugi a couple of days ago luckily, and all of them had been switched off.

"We have to do something, Sirius; they're my brothers and sisters!" Harry protested, though he knew that the adults would consider an underage wizard to be little help in the search, never mind the mind link that bound Harry, Yugi and Yami together, after Yami had helped his mind recover from the stress of the Shadow Realm… no… he'd be considered a pest and kept away from the area.

"Kaiba's already got people looking, they'll find them Harry."

"But it's Yugi and Yami! They could be neck deep in trouble by now! You know what Mokuba said! Yami left behind his Dark Magician! Yami never leaves his Dark Magician anywhere!"

"Maybe he dropped it, he could be perfectly fine for all you know, the link isn't perfect this far away. You've had it vanish intermittently for days now…"

"It's been getting better since we've been heading east." Harry scowled, remembering the moments that the link, which had been playing up with Yugi and Yami in Japan and Harry in France, had vanished, nearly scaring Harry half to death since he knew what that could possibly mean, and causing some rather odd phone calls at rather odd times of the day until they'd left France and started travelling East, stopping at Tournaments on the way… Harry blamed Sirius… when it had at least become stable, though talking or sensing emotions was still impossible.

It was enough for Harry that he could sense that they were alright.

And several hours ago, that feeling had vanished.

"It's Monday today, give it a week, Harry. If the link's not back or Yugi hasn't phoned you by Sunday, we'll go, alright?"

Harry shook his head. "Tomorrow."

"Saturday."

"Tuesday."

"Friday."

"Wednesday."

"Thursday." Sirius offered, knowing just how worried his Godson was, but not understanding how they could be any more useful then fully trained search patrols.

"Wednesday night." Harry offered back, feeling bad for badgering, but needing to know his family were alright.

"Deal." Sirius agreed. "If Yugi hasn't phoned by seven pm on Wednesday, English time, mind." He added, "We'll head to Japan."

"Alright." Harry nodded, unhappy and not really willing to wait that long, he would though, for Sirius.

"Shall we get ready to go out then?" Sirius asked, amused when Harry sorted out his bandana, which covered his scar and was a present from Duke Devlin, though the dog animagus wished it was any colour other then green.

Harry nodded. Three days… he would wait three days…

Sirius hadn't made him agree not to phone…

* * *

Night had fallen in the game and they'd gathered around a camp fire in order to cook some of the food that Yugi had had the foresight to pack. What Yugi hadn't packed in his bag, which he'd put the extension charm on so he could get more stuff in it, Solomon had in his pack, so the meal was in fact quite reasonable.

But it didn't put anyone's mind at rest. Joey was still out there, lost in the wilderness and alone and… Yugi's head came to rest on his knees, not hungry in the slightest at the thought that Joey could be out there somewhere, hungry and injured, while they were enjoying their meal.

' _You need to eat, hikari,'_ Yami sent, trying not to worry the others any further then they already were, _'You'll be no good tomorrow if you let yourself wear down and don't eat.'_

" _But Joey…"_

' _Joey's capable of looking after himself and has his own supplies, or don't you believe what you told Serenity earlier?'_ Yami asked. _'That Joey would be fine and would probably meet us coming around the next corner?'_

Yugi sent him the equivalent of a glare, not overly happy with Yami quoting his own words back at him. He heard Yami give a soft, amused snort, but didn't answer his question. It was easy to be strong for other people while they were on the move, they had to do it all the time, but when they stopped, the fear gnawed away at him, and he knew Yami knew it.

It didn't help that he could sense Yami was worried too, and was just better at faking that he wasn't, then Yugi.

"I just had a thought." Ombre snorted, looking at Yami and Yugi, who both blinked and looked at her simultaneously. "Harry's got to be freaking out right about now."

"Harry doesn't freak out. He just gets… concerned."

Ombre looked partially amused, "He's going to be freaking out and if you don't ring him the moment that we get out of this game, he'll probably bring the whole family to find us."

"Hermione." Yugi face palmed, "She's going to kill me."

"What?"

"Hermione doesn't kill people."

"She will," Yugi responded, shaking his head, "She made me promise to phone at the first sign of weirdness."

"In your defence the phones weren't working."

"She might let me live then…" Yugi considered it.

"Seto won't worry." Ombre said.

"Seto probably already has a search party out looking for us." Yami chuckled, "I don't want to win the title because my rivals are missing, now find them or I'll get all of you fired!"

He said the latter while doing an impression of Seto, which was even funnier when, in the same tone of voice, he yelped, moving back a couple of foot, because Joey had fallen from the sky and had been caught by a Baby Dragon, his face stopping just inches from Yami's.

"Uh… hi."

"Joey!" Yugi and Serenity grinned at the same time, as Baby Dragon set Joey down and returned to his capsule.

In a heartbeat Joey had his sister clinging to him, telling him never to do that again, and if he scared her like that again she was going to do something drastic. Once she'd calmed down, Joey smiled at Yugi and Yami. "You alright bros?"

"We're good, better now you're back with the group." Yami nodded as Yugi hugged his friend.

Joey looked over Yugi's head to his grandfather, "You ok, Gramps?"

"I'm fine." Solomon nodded, amused as Yugi sat back down and proceeded to eat his food hastily.

"Ombre?" Joey asked, with a nod.

"I'm ok." Ombre nodded back.

"You got any of that grub left?" Joey asked. "I'm starved."

"I thought you said you had food." Yami frowned.

"Chocolate bars." Joey scowled.

"Huh?" Everyone but Yugi looked confused. The hikari however, who had luckily just swallowed a mouthful, started laughing.

"It's not funny Yugi!" Joey protested.

"What's so funny?"

"Mai… food… cooked… chocolate bars!" Yugi gasped between giggles. "Duellist Kingdom."

"Give me a break!" Joey complained, "I was still learning!"

"Be nice Yugi or I will give Joey your second helpings." Solomon scolded.

"Sorry." Yugi gasped, trying to calm down.

"We were just discussing who's going to be freaking out the most." Yami advised, trying not to look too amused at his hikari's state.

"That's easy," Joey said as Solomon dished him up a helping, "In order, Harry, Hermione, Seto, Mokuba… Ron won't freak, because he only ever seems to freak out about the wrong things."

"Don't be mean." Yugi scolded.

"I'm not being mean, I'm being honest." Joey protested.

"He has a point. If he's going to freak out about any part of this whole situation, it's going to be because we didn't bring him along." Yami frowned.

There was silence for a moment as Yugi found he couldn't deny this and Ombre frowned as she considered their surroundings. "Hey guys, is it me, or did those flowers move closer?"

The others looked around.

Joey scrambled to his feet, "Uh oh."

"I hate uh oh." Yugi groaned as he got to his own, already reaching for his capsule, recognising that Ombre was right, "It's right up there with fine and oops."

"I thought you said that we had to get over our aversion to 'fine'." Yami prodded, wondering just how much help his Hinotama Soul was going to be.

"Are you going to be quoting things back at me all the way through this game?" Yugi asked irritably.

"Game?" Joey asked.

"This is a Shadow Game, isn't it?" Ombre scowled at Yugi and Yami. They nodded, "I knew it when I felt the injuries my monster sustained."

"A Shadow Game!" Joey yelped, "But that would mean the only way out is to win."

"J…Joey?" Serenity asked, backing up against him as the flowers grew nearer, growling.

"Talk later." Yami advised, "Load capsule!"

Simultaneously, the five younger ones loaded their monsters, launching their capsules at the same time, as Solomon picked up a flaming stick and threw it into the flowers.

Their shadows revealed what they were.

"Flower Wolves!" Yami hissed, scowling as Solomon realised that his capsule was still unusable and an odd shade of silver and picked up another blazing stick as the wolves launched their attack.

"Celtic Guardian!" Yugi yelled, throwing his arm forward, "Attack!" Celtic Guardian's sword cut through the two that had launched themselves at him.

"Baby Dragon! Show us what you can do!" Joey called, pride in his voice as the little orange dragon leapt forward, slamming the Flower Wolves with its tail. One Flower Wolf dodged around the swinging tail and bit into the dragon's side.

Joey cried out, clutching his side.

"Hinotama Soul, help him!" Yami ordered.

The floating fire ball shot forward, setting the wolf's flowers alight. It barked and let go, but a second one slammed into it, singeing its fur but sending it crashing into the ground.

Yami groaned and sunk to his knees.

"Yami!" Serenity's Mystical Elf lured a group away and Yugi was about to help her when his Celtic Guardian was assaulted by a group of Flower Wolves who bit the monster's shoulder and side.

Yugi cried out and Yami struggled to his feet to try to work out a way to help both, settling for grabbing a flaming stick and attacking the wolves attacking Celtic Guardian as Hinotama Soul burnt one of the ones attacking Baby Dragon.

Yami's eyes widened as his Grandpa attempted to fight the wolves off with one of the pieces of lit wood, only to be saved by Ombre's Gigantes, the only monster they had with more attack points then these wolves.

"We need a plan." Yami growled, before dodging a pair of Flower Wolves and falling backwards, having tripped over a stone at his feet. Hinotama Soul burnt one wolf and the other was sliced in two by the monster that had appeared when Yami had hit a capsule that had been mostly buried in the ground. "King's Knight…" Yami murmured. The monster leapt forward, slicing more wolves in two.

"There's too many!" Joey yelled.

"We just need to blind them long enough to get away…" Yugi thought quickly, "Cover your eyes!"

"What?" Joey yelped.

Yami sensed Yugi gather his magic, "Do it!" Yami snapped, already closing his.

The others followed suit just in time as Yugi sent out a wave of light that knocked back all the wolves and by the time that it had faded, the humans had gone, leaving only the campfire and the bags behind.


	3. Directions

Hermione had been minutes away from her second round battle when her phone had gone.

How had she just known that something was going to go wrong with her family? Things always went wrong when the Clan was involved. At least this time she wasn't out of the loop, Mokuba had promised to call her when they had more information.

But it didn't help to stop the worrying. While she welcomed knowing what was going on with the general weirdness that was her family, she couldn't help feeling useless, as there was nothing that she could do to help.

"Are you paying any attention at all, Granger?" Jenny Farrent called across the field, as Hermione considered her hand.

This wasn't easy. She was too distracted to keep her mind on the duel, and if she wasn't careful, Jenny was going to win easily.

After her poor showing at the Tournament back in school, she had no intent of going down easy. "I play Card Destruction!" She called, discarding her entire hand, which included two level five Spellcasters and drew a new one, hoping for a particular card.

Which she didn't draw.

"Ra damn it." Hermione hissed, her deck was playing up too; she guessed it was because it could sense she didn't really want to be here, she wanted to be finding a way to get to Japan and help find the others. "I set a card in defence mode, play a card face down and end my turn."

Jenny considered the field as Hermione considered her options, she could forfeit the Duel, drop out of the tournament and try activating the locating part of the beacon that she and Kari had made, but without being there in person, it wouldn't do much more then point in the general direction that they were, not allow her to find them…

"I attack your face down card!" Jenny called, her Dunames Dark Witch attacking Hermione's card.

"I activate Draining Shield!" Hermione called.

Dunames Dark Witch hit the shield, and its attack point total was added to Hermione's life points, pushing her up from 300 to 2100.

"Fine, that ends my turn."

Of course Hermione had already thought to mention the beacons to Mokuba, who had said that he'd try them the moment he got off the phone and would call her much later with any answers they'd gotten since he'd last called.

Hermione drew, considered her hand and… "I sacrifice my Ancient Elf for the Dark Magician Girl!"

Hermione had to pause when Dark Magician Girl came to the field. Most of Kari's deck had gone to Ombre, when the hikari had died, but this Dark Magician Girl, specifically, had been left to Hermione.

"And I equip her with Magic Formula." Hermione continued, "Boosting her to 2700."

The Dark Magician Girl took a couple of moments to skim read the book, then turned her eyes back to her opponent.

"Dark Magician Girl, destroy Dunames Dark Witch!"

The Dark Magician Girl blasted away the fairy on the other side of the field, taking 900 points from Jenny's life points. "And play a card face down. That ends my turn."

Jenny scowled as she looked at the field, "I set a card face down and end my turn."

"Please, please please…" Hermione drew and grinned, "I set a card face down." She hesitated. Jenny didn't have enough life points left to survive another direct assault, so there had to be something Hermione was missing and it was probably to do with that face down card.

She didn't want to risk losing her Dark Magician Girl. "I play a monster in defence mode and end my turn."

Jenny grinned, "You should have attacked," She called, "My face down card's not a trap. I play Monster Reborn to bring back my Fallen Angel Superbia, allowing me to also call back my Athena from the Graveyard too."

Both fairies appeared on the field, making Hermione scowl.

"And I'll activate my face down Luminous Spark, to increase their attack by another five hundred."

"Oh." Hermione did the math quickly.

"Fallen Angel, attack her Magician Girl!" Dark Magician Girl screamed and vanished, making Hermione cringe. She hated it when that card was sent to the graveyard, "Athena, attack her directly!"

Hermione's points hit zero.

"I win." The crowd roared.

"Not quite." Hermione replied with a grin, "I activate Relay Soul."

Her Magician's Valkyria took the field.

"Your life points hit zero!" Jenny protested.

"I know, Relay Soul gets activated when my Life Points hit 0. It lets me special summon a monster from my hand and as long as that monster remains on the field, I can't lose."

"You won't last much longer anyway." Jenny snorted, "Your Valkyria is no match for my monsters."

"We'll see."

"I end my turn."

Luminous Spark was a field card, so it boosted Hermione's light monsters too, pushing her Valkyria up to 2100, no match for Jenny's two monsters, but she had a crazy idea… if she drew the right card. She drew.

"I remove from play two level five Spellcasters from my graveyard in order to summon my Millennium Witch to the field."

Her trump card, her partner card, appeared on the field, fiddling with her hat for a moment, before settling down, her points automatically going from 2900 to 3400, matching the fallen angel. "And I can use her special ability to boost my Valkyria's attack by 1500, making her more then a match for your Athena."

Valkyria hit 3600.

"Valkyria, attack Athena!" At 3100, Athena had no chance and exploded. "Millennium Witch, attack the fallen angel!"

Millennium Witch and Superbia exploded simultaneously. "Your move."

Jenny frowned, considering everything. "I set a card in defence mode and that's all I can do."

Hermione nodded as she drew. "Magician's Valkyria, attack her face down card!"

It flipped face up, and exploded, taking Valkyria with it and ending the game.

"What was that?" Hermione asked, partially glad that it was over and she could go worry about her family without being distracted now.

"Old Vindictive Magician." Jenny grinned. "Nice try though, better luck next time."

"Thanks, good luck in the next round." Hermione nodded and left.

She had other things to worry about…

She paused to think about it logically. She needed to speak to Harry, see if the link was active, and then if it was, see if he could find them.

One step at a time…

They'd find them.

Hopefully before something major happened…again.

* * *

The sun was rising on the game world and they were all shattered.

Yugi had given up arguing with Joey about an hour ago and was currently having a piggy back because he was shattered from repeatedly using his magic to blind and repel the wolves that had stalked them downriver and chased them to the edge of the lake they were walking around now.

Yami had been sending energy down the link, draining himself to help Yugi stay awake, but when Solomon had realised what Yami was doing, he'd told Yami to stop it and that it would be better for Yugi to recover on his own, then for Yami to keel over later because he'd sent too much energy to his hikari.

Within a few minutes of Yami cutting the energy transfer, Yugi had fallen asleep.

The others were only better off by dint of not having used much magic, but everyone was hungry and only Yugi had gotten any sleep.

"Did we have to leave the bags behind?" Joey complained.

"We didn't exactly have time to grab them." Ombre pointed out quietly, trying not to wake Yugi.

"But I'm hungry…"

"We're all hungry." Yami growled back irritably.

"I don't see why we couldn't go back for them now." Ombre said, looking back as giving Serenity a reassuring smile that she didn't quite feel.

"Because we have no idea where they were." Solomon said firmly.

"We have to go back for the bags." Yami groaned something suddenly hitting him, "Our wands were in them…" He indicated himself and Yugi.

"I thought Yuge's was in his pocket." Joey frowned.

"He put it in his bag when we realised they were useless." Yami said, feeling like an idiot.

"I'll go." Joey nodded, "We were in a clearing to start with last night, it shouldn't be too hard to find it if I fly overhead with my Baby Dragon."

"Sorry."

"Hey, this means I get to find food. I'm not complaining." Joey grinned.

"Yugi…" Yami shook his hikari, who gave him a bleary eyed look.

"Hey… did I fall asleep? Sorry."

"It's ok, but Joey's going for the bags, so…" Joey dropped Yugi, who landed on his feet.

"You gonna be alright?" Yugi asked his best friend, concern obvious.

"I'll be ok, Yuge." Joey nodded, launching his capsule, and Baby Dragon gave them all a curious look. "Wait here, on the lake edge."

"We'll try not to go anywhere." Solomon nodded.

Joey and his dragon took off and they sat on the lake bank. "You know, it would be just our luck for some sort of water creature to pop out at us now." Yami growled.

"Touch wood it won't happen." Ombre said, quickly touching a tree.

"You alright Serenity?" Solomon asked as Yugi took off his trainers and socks and let his feet rest in the water.

"I thought this was a game." Serenity complained, sitting down next to Yugi, "Shouldn't it have rules and win conditions and things?"

"There should be rules and things, we just haven't found them yet." Yami said, agreeing full heartedly with Serenity's complaint.

"How is that fair?" Serenity asked. "What if we never find them?"

"We will." Yugi said confidently, though quietly. "We'll get out of here, we just need to find out what we're supposed to be doing and then do it."

Yami smiled slightly at the young man who was his guiding light, as Yugi leant back on his arms and looked up at the sky, trust Yugi to try and get everyone thinking positive. _'You should try to go back to sleep, you're still shattered.'_

" _You're tired too Yami. Should we find somewhere safe for everyone to rest?"_

' _Everyone's tired and hungry, aibou.'_ Yami replied, without anyone being aware they were talking.

"You feeling better?" Ombre asked Yugi, poking the young man who had suddenly started looking at his feet.

"The water's moving." Yugi's answer confused the spirit of the Orb until she saw the mountains that were over the other side of the lake were moving.

"Get away from the edge." Yami pulled Yugi away, while Ombre pulled Serenity away from the water.

"So… is it the scenery or us that is moving?" Ombre asked.

"Us, I think." Yugi said, forgetting his shoes and running the opposite way to the water flow, reaching the edge quickly, only to find something popping up from the water.

Yami pulled Yugi behind him as the huge head turned to look at them.

"Easy Yami, it's only an Island Turtle. They're pacifists." Yugi said, stepping out from behind his dark and smiling up at the Duel Monster. "No wonder those Wolves stopped chasing us, they probably didn't want to annoy the turtle."

The turtle's head disappeared underwater again and Yugi squeaked as the island started disappearing underwater. "Uh oh."

Solomon arrived, with Serenity and Ombre and holding Yugi's shoes, which the hikari quickly threw on, discarding the socks as he had too little time. "We have to jump."

"Jump?" Two horrified voices echoed each other. Yami and Ombre looked at each other.

"Into the water." Solomon nodded.

Yugi face palmed. "Kari tried to teach you how to swim." He groaned at Yami.

"You can't swim?" Serenity asked.

"Don't really have time for this." Solomon growled.

"I'll help you," Yugi promised, "But you have to jump in."

"Come on." Solomon growled, "If we stay on the back of here, the water displacement will pull us under." He jumped.

"I promise, Yami. I've got you." Yugi swore.

Ombre and Serenity jumped.

Yami nodded.

They jumped in.

* * *

Ron Weasley wasn't sure how to react to the news.

His family were missing again.

There was a way these things normally panned out, and he was expecting to get a call saying that Harry was missing next.

When had the abnormal become quite this normal for him?

There was a reason that they were out here playing Quidditch, it was a distraction for the twins, Ginny and himself, to try to take their minds off the fact that the gang were missing and most likely in some sort of life threatening danger… again.

Why? Why was it always when he couldn't help?

The gang had been in America… Harry had gone missing… Yugi had been taken… Ombre kidnapped… and all he'd known was that Harry wasn't replying to any letters.

The snake, the Stone, the hut, Anubis… Voldemort…

There was a reason Ron ranted and raved at his friends when they were around. It was because whenever he wasn't, they would fall into situations where they could possibly get killed… and he would never know what happened to them.

Not only that but they then kept details from him, allowed him to make an idiot of himself and then kept their own council.

Did they ever phone him themselves… no.

But then Mokuba had said that there was a problem with their fellytones… tellyphones… so maybe they really hadn't been able to get help this time…

Always when Ron couldn't help, always when the Duel Monsters weren't around…

Ron scowled as he caught the Quaffle and threw it back at Fred.

Always when they were alone… stranded…

Ron weaved in and out of the hoops, ready for the next ball.

He'd rung Hermione, who had been unable to reach the gang who were missing, not that Ron found himself particularly surprised.

"Ron, heads up!" Ginny bellowed.

The next thing he knew, he was on the ground and the twins were stood over him.

"Honestly Ron, you're supposed to catch the Quaffle…"

"Not the Bludgers."

* * *

Joey was worried.

The piece of land from earlier was missing.

So… new question. It the piece of land had vanished, did that mean that…

They did a sweep of the lake edges and then Joey directed his dragon towards the small temple like structure that he'd noticed when he'd taken off, in case they'd swum to that when the land had vanished, afraid that the rest of the land would vanish.

It looked quite old, Greek possibly from this angle, though he supposed if it was a game in a Roman Tomb then it was probably Roman, not Greek, and if he was right… it was on his map…

That reminded him, as Baby Dragon spiralled down and landed on the steps, he needed to show the others the…

Ombre was the only one awake, and she gave him a small smile as he nodded to her. They were all soaked, wet clothes clinging, hair drooping…

"What happened?" Joey hissed.

"The Island was an Island Turtle." Ombre hissed back, "Which decided it wanted to dive under."

"Oh."

"Yeah."

Serenity stirred, blinking twice as she realised Joey had reached them and then he staggered backwards as she hugged him.

"Hey Serenity." Joey grinned as his sister pulled away, carefully setting the bags down. He looked over to Solomon, only to find that the old man was already awake. "Our clothes and stuff were all over the floor and the food's gone."

"What about the wands?"

"They're fine." Joey pulled two gold wands out of his back pocket, "They'll need polishing, but they're not damaged."

"That's good."

"Well if there's no food, I suppose we'd better wake the other two up." Ombre sighed.

There wasn't any need, the pair were already stirring, stretching and looking around as sleepy brains tried to catch up with current events.

Yugi, who was a morning person naturally, was the first to stand up, poking his dark side; who most certainly wasn't and took another couple of minutes.

"Thanks Joey." Yugi smiled, accepting his wand.

"Food?" Yami asked, taking his wand from Joey and shoving it in his pocket.

"The food was gone, I think some of the clothes were wreaked too." Joey scowled, "Looks like the wolves tore apart the stuff in the bags when we vanished."

"Damn." Yami would have started checking his stuff over, but there was a loud noise from behind him and he wheeled around in time to see the temple doors open inwards of their own accord.

"Huh, think obvious game clue much?"

"Don't complain, just accept the hint." Yugi said, hefting his bag onto his shoulder.

"It could be trap."

"Yes, but currently it's the only clue we have to what we're actually supposed to be doing." Yugi pointed out.

"I'll take point." Yami said instantly, picking up his bag and walking over to the door.

"Wait up!" Joey growled at him, chasing him inside.

"Yami!" Yugi was gone next.

"Come on, we'll lose them at this rate." Ombre scowled.

Serenity hesitated.

"You're safer with them then out here." Solomon recommended, halfway through the door, "They're the best people to be around when it comes to magical games, besides, we're going to have to play through this game in order to escape."

Serenity nodded and followed last, entering the temple, where a fire raged on the steps to the front, but there seemed to be little else.

"This has got to be a…"

The doors slammed shut behind them.

"Trap." Yugi, Yami and Joey groaned simultaneously.

"We have to go forward anyway in order to complete the game." Yugi said, turning away from the doors and reaching for his capsule as the fire seemed to dance, the smoke curling up and around the ceiling and vanishing through a hole in the roof.

The fire appeared to solidify, forming into a blazing crocodile that stomped towards them.

' _Great, just great.'_ Yami scowled, as the group launched their capsules, "Everyone be careful, that's a Firestorm Prominence, I don't know if it has the same abilities as it does in Duel Monsters but…"

"Oh no…" Yugi breathed, remembering its effect in the card game.

"Yuge, what does it do?" Joey asked nervously.

He didn't have time to answer as the doors slammed open and a wave of water shot through the door, flowing around Solomon, Ombre and Serenity and seeming to settle, as if held in place by some force, allowing a huge black water serpent to rise from the waves.

"Silent Abyss… brilliant." Yugi's tone was heavy with sarcasm.

"Another one with an insane effect?" Joey asked.

"In Duel Monsters, when Silent Abyss is destroyed in battle and sent to the Graveyard, it destroys all face down and non-Water monsters. Firestorm Prominence does the same but for non-Fire…" Yugi trailed off, a thought striking him.

"I've got Silent Abyss." Ombre said, her Gigantes moving between her and the Reptile.

"I've got Firestorm then." Yami nodded.

"Wait I have a…" Yugi didn't get the chance to say plan as he had to dive out of the way of the blaze that shot from Firestorm Prominence.

"Hey, pea brain!" Ombre bellowed, distracting the serpent, who seemed intent of washing her Gigantes away.

Fire shot from the crocodile's mouth, causing King's Knight to have to roll under the flames, attempting to attack the Fire attribute creature who just twatted the Knight with his tail, sending King's Knight sprawling and causing Yami to groan.

Ombre went crashing into a pillar as Silent Abyss attacked her with a powerful water spout instead of her monster.

"Everyone recall your monsters!" Yugi growled, moving between Yami and Firestorm Prominence.

"Yugi?"

"Trust me."

"But if we don't have any monsters out…"

"We don't need them." Yugi sounded certain.

"King's Knight, return." Yami put his faith in his hikari's plan and recalled his monster and, following his lead, everyone else did the same.

"Get to one side."

"No way, we're in on this too, Yugi."

"We have to get them to attack each other, they have the same attack strengths and each one is weak to the other and this way we won't lose our monsters." _"I hope."_

"I get it." Joey nodded as Yami gave Yugi a sharp look at the bit he hadn't said out loud.

Silent Abyss attacked from behind, causing Ombre and Joey to pounce on the group, pulling them to the ground.

The water spout shot over their heads, hitting Firestorm Prominence who roared and exploded, but fired off one last fireball, which hit Silent Abyss causing it to explode too and the water to recede.

When everything had fallen silent again and the last traces of both monsters were gone, Joey looked around.

"So we stopped the monsters, now what?"

Ombre was examining something behind the pillar she'd hit, touching a Capsule that revealed a really odd thing that looked vaguely like a sphinx but more like someone had decided that it wanted to play genetic experimentation. "Hello Criosphinx." Ombre nodded.

The 'sphinx' bowed and shot into her Capsule launcher, becoming a gold capsule which Ombre added to her belt.

The group wheeled around to look at where the fire had been when they had first entered the temple as the ground shook and something rose from the plinth.

"Egyptian text." Yami sounded more surprised then he probably should have.

"Can someone translate it please?" Joey asked.

"Sure."

"Uh huh."

"Certainly."

The three Mutos, who had spoken simultaneously, all looked at each other and laughed.

"You can read ancient Egyptian?" Serenity sounded… amused if anything, as if she had kind of expected it.

"Well Gramps used to be an Archaeologist, Yami's…" Joey trailed off.

"I was there when Marik was causing trouble, remember?" Serenity glared at him.

"Yami's from ancient Egypt, and Yugi was taught by…"

Heads went down, silence fell for a moment.

"Before the shadows blanket the land, go to the Fortress of Fear, locate the place where the spirits sleep and the pathway you seek will appear." Solomon's voice cut through their brooding, "Huh, I wonder what it means."

"Before shadows blanket the land probably refers to sunset." Yugi said, thinking quickly.

"I have an idea on the Fortress of Fear thing." Joey said, "I've been meaning to show this to you all day." He pulled a piece of parchment out of his back pocket and spread it out on the floor. "I think I found a map."

They gathered around it. "This has to be us, here." Yami pointed out the temple in the middle of the lake on the map.

"Which would make this the Fortress of Fear." Ombre nodded, pointing to the other marked building, "But that's the other side of the lake and it doesn't look close by any stretch of the imagination."

"If this is a Shadow Game, it has to be fair." Yami said, standing up and looking around, "Which means that it can't be impossible."

"So how do we get there?"

"Can Baby Dragon take us across the lake?" Serenity asked Joey who frowned.

"One at a time maybe, but it would take too long."

"So what do we do?"

"Well swimming isn't an option." Yugi said, glancing at his dark and then out the door at the water, which was glittering in the sunlight. "I'll go look for a boat."

"I'll come with you." Serenity said, feeling rather useless at the moment.

"We'll look around in here and see if there are any clues." Yami nodded.

Joey watched Yugi and Serenity go with narrowed eyes, making Yami laugh. "Relax Joey, I'd be more worried if it was Tristan or Duke going with her, you know Yugi won't try anything."

Joey just grumbled at him under his breath and started searching.

* * *

Rebecca stretched and took a sip of her, now flat, coke cola, pausing in her research, to acknowledge the fact that she wasn't really sure what she was looking for.

It helped, having something to do, even if there was nothing she could do, and she'd decided that her best bet would be to research Indian myths and legends in order to see if they had any relevance to the current situation.

There was a part of her that just knew her old classmates would have laughed at her for this, those who she'd studied with at College would have thought her odd and dismissed it as childish, just as they'd dismissed her a child even though she had an IQ that was higher then most of theirs…

Her real friends had never done that. Not once, when she had needed to look through something to get information had they turned their back on her and left her to it, no, they had settled down in a chair right next to her and asked what she needed them to do.

They even pushed her to limits that she hadn't even realised she had on occasions, when they were pitting their brains against hers, or studying together or…

And even the older members of their family, Yugi and the others, had never been rude towards her when she hadn't been being a complete brat, and yes, she could admit being a brat towards them when she had first met them, but in her defence she had been a lot younger then…

It hurt, when she thought about Yugi.

She didn't know if she still loved him. Liked yes, as a friend, as a brother… but as a boyfriend?

She didn't know.

The same part of her that was growing up, had been able to see that Yugi hadn't really been happy as her date, and had been the same part of her that had decided against the love potion, even after everything she'd gone through to brew it without her friends' knowledge.

When did love stop being love and become obsession?

Yugi had enough obsessed fan girls… he didn't need his little sister acting like one.

However there were plenty of other things that she could do, and that she was good at, like matching up facts to figures and joining up the dots that she could see were related…

There were hundreds of tales of magic and gods in India, and she just knew something in there had to be relevant.

With a huge stack of books in front of her, a map of India to her right and her mobile phone to her left, Rebecca dove back into her books.

* * *

"No boats." Yugi groaned, standing just to one side of the door, having walked the whole way around the temple and not really wanting to go back to Yami with the suggestion that they attempt swimming across. It had been hard enough getting him to jump into the lake in the first place.

"What should we do then?" Serenity asked, "Yami can't swim."

"I don't know." Yugi sighed, "The only thing I can think of is getting Baby Dragon to take Yami…" Yugi face palmed again, "That won't work."

"Why not?"

"Yami doesn't like heights, especially not on dragons. He has a good reason but…" Yugi sighed. "Sorry for ruining your vacation."

"Did you break our portkey?" Serenity asked.

"Well no, but…"

"Then it isn't your fault."

"I didn't break the portkey but things always get…" Yugi trailed off as Yami's voice echoed in his mind.

' _Yugi, you and Serenity had better come quickly. I think we've found a route under the lake.'_

"Yugi?" Serenity asked, worried.

"They've found something inside." Yugi said, forcing a smile and racing inside, "What's up?"

"Joey found a trap door." Yami said, giving his hikari a grin, "There's a passageway down there."

"Well there's no boats and you can't swim, so short of getting Baby Dragon to take us all across, this is our best bet."

"Let's go then."

They dropped down into the passageway, running along in the darkness, unsure how there was just enough light to see, even though there were no torches or lights of any kind.

"Wait up, I have short legs."

Yugi paused to let his Grandfather catch up, having forgotten how much faster they had all become over the last school year because of all the training they'd been doing and that his Grandfather was much older then they were.

"You alright, Grandpa?" Yugi asked, noting Yami had stopped a couple of meters on, waiting for them.

"I'm too old for this." Solomon panted, making Yugi freeze and look at his Grandfather, worry coursing through him.

"Gramps?" Joey called back, his voice lost in the darkness. "Yuge? Yams?"

"Yams?" Yami sounded completely disgusted, "Yams?"

"Uh oh…" Joey's voice echoed.

"I'd run if I were you." Ombre could be heard to be advising.

"Yams? Where?" Serenity's voice echoed, the sounds of a stomach rumbling sounding like a monster down here.

There was the sound of footsteps fleeing in the other direction and Yami took off after them.

"Come on, we'd better rescue Joey." Solomon chuckled.

Yugi nodded, amused, "Yami can be terrifying when he wants to be."

They caught up with them at the end of the tunnel, where the trap door was open and Ombre and Serenity helped them out, while Yami and Joey bickered at each other.

"So, where are we?" Yugi asked, trying to break up the mock-argument.

"Well," Joey got his map out as Yami considered the sky, "If I'm right, we're here." He pointed to a skull in a circle on the map.

"A cemetery?" Ombre frowned, thinking about all the zombie monsters in Duel Monsters, "That's not good."

"We don't have time to worry about it." Yami growled. "The sun will set soon and then we'll be stuck here."

"Which way?" Solomon asked.

"That way." Joey pointed north east, "At least, that's if we haven't been turned around…"

"Guys!" Yugi yelped, already sending out Celtic Guardian.

"What's wrong, Yugi?" Yami asked, then noticed what Yugi was looking at. "I thought the undead only came out at night?"

"What do you mean, the undead only come out at… ahhh zombies!" Joey yelped.

"There's too many." Ombre growled, as Solomon sent out his Summoned Skull.

"Release more monsters." Joey called, tapping two capsules at once.

Flame Swordsman and Panther Warrior moved between Joey and the zombies.

The zombies attacked.

Flame Swordsman and King's Knight were backing each other up and Summoned Skull took out the first couple of rows.

"Criosphinx! Attack!" Ombre bellowed, her sphinx following her orders and taking down the two zombies that were sneaking up behind Summoned Skull.

Panther Warrior struck from the trees, striking some of the monsters down that had only just come out of hiding.

"Celtic Guardian! Help Mystical Elf!" Yugi ordered as the Light Spellcaster was nearly overwhelmed.

"Yugi!"

"Serenity!"

The pair were getting further away from the main group, and had been cut off from the others.

"Serenity, behind you!" Yugi ducked under Serenity's out stretched arm and took the blow from a Zombie Servant, causing him to be knocked back into the young woman, and both went crashing into a pair of capsules.

Serenity wriggled out from underneath Yugi, moving between him and zombies. "Ancient one, take them out!"

Yugi watched in surprise as a huge blue dragon, with golden armour, long greenish fur that could almost be mistaken for hair, great white butterfly like wings and odd, spindly arms, took down all the zombies at once.

"Thank you, Ancient Fairy Dragon." Serenity bowed to the dragon, who appeared to bow back, closing its great golden eyes for a moment, before vanishing into a capsule.

Only then did Serenity turn to look at Yugi. "Are you alright?"

"Yes, thank you." Yugi nodded, his smile broken as he groaned when Serenity gave him a hand up, hand going to his chest where the blow had struck him.

"Yugi!" Yami rushed over, now that the zombies were gone.

"I'm fine." Yugi lied, steadying himself and standing up.

"Where does it hurt?" Serenity demanded, already calling her Mystical Elf over.

"We don't have time." Yugi shook his head, looking skyward to where the first tinges of red were already beginning to taint the sky.

"Kuriii!"

"Hi Boh." Yugi smiled slightly, recognising the Duel Monster instantly.

"Kuriii!" Kuriboh pushed Mystical Elf towards Yugi, ignoring Yugi's statement.

"Boh?" Yugi hesitated, chest constricting painfully, though he tried to hide it, _"Can you hear me?"_ He sent towards the little fuzzball.

"What was that?" Joey asked his sister as she directed Mystical Elf to heal Yugi and Yugi gave up arguing since it was wasting time. "That dragon?"

 _This world is dangerous, Light Prince._ Yugi's head shot towards the Kuriboh. It didn't sound like Boh, but at the same time... the voice was the same, the mannerisms were different. _You should accept the healing. You still have time._

"Ancient Fairy Dragon." Serenity replied, as light surrounded Yugi and Yami sensed his hikari's pain lessening, "She's a Monster World Guardian who pledged her aid a couple of years back."

"Pledged her help?" Yami questioned as the light died and Yugi thanked Serenity profusely.

"Monster World Guardian?" Joey asked.

"I'll explain later." Serenity promised. "It's a long story."

"We have to go now." Yugi nodded his agreement of her statement. Yami hesitated and Yugi knew he wanted to make a fuss about Yugi's health, but there just wasn't time… "Kuriboh, return."

The Kuriboh gave him an odd look and they ran for it, towards the mountain.

" _We are cutting this way too fine."_ Yugi growled, more to himself then anything.

' _It'll be ok, we're nearly there. We'll make it.'_

Yugi put on another burst of speed, reaching the bottom of the stairs, which led up the mountain and to the temple, touching a tree as he passed. _"Touch wood."_

' _Nothing's going…'_

" _Don't jinx it!"_ Yugi yelped, glancing over his shoulder at his dark. _"Whatever you do don't jinx it!"_

' _Sorry.'_ Yami sounded like he was chuckling, though Yugi could still sense his concern, _'You alright?'_

" _I'm fine."_ Yugi told his dark as he reached the top of the steps, pausing to catch his breath, _"And here's the 'Fortress of Fear'."_

' _Really?'_ Yami paused at the top of the steps and looked around. "Well… this has to be the place…"

"Wow, it… looks… amazing." Serenity gasped.

"It would have… looked just as amazing…at the bottom of the mountain." Joey complained between breaths.

"Guys, sunset?" Ombre asked, looking over her shoulder to where the sun was just an hour from the horizon line.

"Let's go." Yami nodded, stepping towards the temple.

The ground shook and from it rose four great walls that sealed the Fortress inside and was made of stone that was too tall and too smooth to climb.

The wall in front of them looked like it had a doorway of some kind, with a symbol on it, a rectangle with a circle in each of the corners.

"Great, just great." Joey growled. "Anyone got any suggestions?"


	4. Armour

"Well," Yugi considered when they were unable to push the huge stone door open and they'd examined every side of the stone square to try to find a way in, resulting in nothing, except the fact that Yugi had managed to find another capsule, in which had been Gaia, the Fierce Knight. "Up and over?"

Serenity reached for her Ancient Fairy Dragon capsule, sighing when she realised that it was silver. "No good." She said, showing them.

"Step aside," Solomon had Summoned Skull out, "I may have a bad back, but Summoned Skull doesn't."

They moved. No one wanted to get hit by the attack that arched from the fiend monster's arms and struck the door, only to dissipate on contact.

"Launch!" Joey's voice caught them by surprise, taking off on his Baby Dragon, soaring up high as the sun sank further.

"Here I come, to save the day!" Joey crowed, making Yami shake his head and Yugi to groan, at least before Baby Dragon attempted to fly over the wall.

Then he swooped into an invisible barrier, which pushed the pair backwards, causing them to go crashing to the floor.

"Big brother." Serenity rushed over, as Joey yelped and picked up the capsule that had been his Baby Dragon, "Are you alright?"

Yugi was trying to think fast, they were running out of time, just half an hour until sunset, if Yami was correct, and they still hadn't found out how to get in…

The four statues at the corners of the stone box had to be the clue, but he didn't know… why had that lit up?

His train of thought having jumped the rails for a moment, he turned to look at his family, to see if it was something they were doing.

Ombre was sat down, glowering at the door as if it was Kaiba, Bakura, Dumbledore or Snape or possibly all of them, Yugi wasn't sure and didn't want to ask, and Serenity was checking Joey was alright from the fall. Yami was being rather rude about the door, and to be honest Yugi was surprised the Pharaoh hadn't noticed the light…

His grandfather was stood, with his arms crossed, giving the door a stern look.

In front of one of the statues.

Yugi got it.

"Guys, we need to mimic the," Yami noticed the light just in time for it to go out as Solomon turned to look at the heir, "Statues."

"You sure?" Joey asked.

"Uh huh." Yugi nodded, explaining quickly, "There was a light on the door just know, while Grandpa was mimicking that statue," Yugi pointed to the one in question.

Yami caught on, "So if we copy the other three statues…"

The Ombre caught on too, getting to her feet. "The door should open!"

"We'll play statue." Joey indicated himself, Serenity, Ombre and Solomon, "You two go through and find the place where the spirit sleeps."

"Right." Yugi and Yami nodded; sure they were looking for a casket of some kind.

"Come on sis."

There was a pause of around five minutes, much longer then they could really afford, considering that they had so little time left, and then all four lights lit up and the door opened.

Yugi and Yami raced inside, running along the path and into the temple.

"There it is!" Yugi got ahead of Yami by a couple of paces and, competitive spirit kicking in, Yami sped up too, causing him to fail to stop in time before the floor disappeared out from under them.

They fell…

* * *

Sunset…

It was almost exactly seven pm on Monday the 11th of July, and his family had been missing for a grand total of almost exactly eight and a half hours.

It was times like this that made Seto Kaiba, the CEO of the (second) biggest gaming corporation in the world was glad that he wasn't one of these CEOs who required several shots of brandy to get up in the morning, yet alone deal with a crisis.

What he wanted to do was go with his search party, what he was doing instead was much more useful, arranging transport for when they inevitably did show up, providing bribes to allow his team into India to search, getting a hold of medical support that he could trust to be discreet… just in case.

"Big brother?" Mokuba was both worried and tired as he watched his brother's secretary bring him both the files on Kaiba Corp's medical personnel and another cup of his brother's preferred crunch time coffee.

Black, with no sugar, the strongest type of bean Seto could get (and there was no question of price), and which stunk out the CEO's office.

"We'll find them Mokuba." Seto said firmly, though it sounded hollow to both of the Kaiba Brothers. It wasn't only Mokuba who remembered just how hard a time of it Kari had had trying to find them when they had vanished from the face of the Earth last summer.

Mokuba watched Seto take a swig of the death coffee and tear through the files, considering each and every individual before putting them into one of three piles.

Yes, no, and maybe.

Mokuba was surprised at the outcome.

There were three Muggle doctors in the no pile, one healer in the yes pile and both a Muggle doctor and a healer in the maybe pile.

"You can't send a Muggle, surely." Mokuba frowned, wondering what Seto was up to, "There's bound to be magic involved."

"We tend to forget, Mokuba," Seto said, considering the maybes, preferring to send two to tend to at least five people, "That not all of our enemies have magic. A healer wouldn't have much idea of how to treat some conditions. For all of the magical world's 'advancements' in the field of healing, they cannot treat many conditions that a Muggle Doctor could easily deal with."

"Oh."

"Besides, this Doctor has dealt with magical injuries before. He was the one who somehow managed to keep Wheeler from dying during Battle City."

Mokuba shuddered, remembering Joey's collapse during his game against Marik.

It seemed so long ago now…

Mokuba's mobile phone rang again and Seto gave it a glare that… if it was possible… would have caused it to explode or melt into a glob of plastic and metal.

It had been going off intermittently since Mokuba had started phoning people and if he heard it go off one more time…

"Hermione." Mokuba had started checking the caller id automatically, just to make sure that he had the right person and didn't have to ask over and over again who was calling. "Yes, I tried it. It doesn't work…"

* * *

Joey wibbled and wobbled and proceeded to fall over.

"Oww, my legs cramped up." He moaned.

"Big brother?" Serenity called from her corner, leaving the stance she'd taken to look over, concerned.

Ombre swore as the door shut, locking Yugi and Yami inside.

"Guys…" Serenity backed up as her statue started to move.

"Launch!" Joey said without preamble, sending out his Panther Warrior to fight the huge stone warrior.

"Launch!" Ombre and Serenity called simultaneously, Solomon's Summoned Skull already fighting.

Criosphinx and Ancient Fairy Dragon appeared and started fighting.

"What's taking so long?" Ombre hissed as her sphinx was batted backwards by a huge stone hand. "Yugi, Yami… come on…"

* * *

"You okay?" Yami asked, helping Yugi to his feet.

"Ouch. How did you flip in mid air like that?" Yugi demanded, glowering at the four walls that now surrounded them. "And how are we getting out of here."

"We need to get some dragon monsters." Yami sighed, looking up.

It looked like they'd fallen around two storeys, down into a small room at the bottom of a rather narrow tunnel.

"We don't have long. We have to get out of here." Yugi growled, leaping to try to reach the hole, only to find that he couldn't just high enough. "Ra damn it…huh?"

With a terrifying rumble, the walls had just started to close in on them.

One of Yugi's capsules started glowing, he launched it quickly, only to find that it was Kuriboh's and the little fiend monster was bouncing up and down excitedly by the hole.

"Kuriboh, what is it?" Yugi asked, squeaking as the walls reached about a third of the way in respectively…

"Yugi, look!" Yami pointed to a capsule that they hadn't seen when they had fallen and rested on a ledge just to one side of the hole they'd fallen through.

"I can't reach it." Yugi growled, pausing, "Try climbing on my shoulders…"

Yami had another plan. He took a running jump and just about managed to grab the ledge, pulling himself up and tapping the capsule.

Yugi cringed and backed up against a wall, as the walls made the room about half the size…

There was a blinding purple light…

"Yugi!" Yami cried as he heard the walls crunch together.

"I'm okay." Yugi breathed as the light died down. "Mahado saved us."

Yami looked to his right, where the Dark Magician, who had carried Yami out of the hole, was also holding Yugi.

"The sun!" Yugi panicked.

"The others…" Yami gestured.

Yugi and Yami looked at each and then at the Dark Magician. _'I hope this works…'_

"Magical Crossroads!" The two bellowed at the same time.

Purple light shot from them, forming a crisscross of light that shielded the four ally monsters in the corners, and into beams of light that cut through the enemy monsters.

They stayed long enough to see the first of them crumple and then the Dark Magician deposited them inside the temple, vanishing into his capsule as the walls began to fall.

"Open, open, open!" Yugi pleaded with the lid of the casket as the light faded from the doorway…

The lid came off just as the sun slipped below the horizon.

"We did it!" Yami breathed a sigh of relief...

For all of about three seconds, until another bright light blinded them.

They had to blink the bright spots away as the golden light died down, having caught them by surprise.

There was another tablet with hieroglyphs on it, which, if Yami was right, was the underside of the casket lid they had just pushed off, the casket itself was stood on its end and had turned into a glowing doorway, and a really strange looking gold coloured set of upper torso armour floated in mid air.

"Yugi! Yami!"

The air turned around at Joey's tone, dreading what they were going to find. "What's wrong?"

"Gramps' monster got smashed."

"Are you alright?" Yugi asked of his grandfather, eyes wide.

"We have more important things to worry about." Solomon waved the concern off, though he still felt battered and exhausted. "Like that tablet, for example."

Yami turned around to look at it, "Pass through this doorway and thy journey shall start, five trials will follow to test they heart. But I warn you this trial is not for the weak, only a true warrior can unearth what you seek."

"Another riddle?" Joey groaned.

The armour glowed, turning into a golden light that surrounded Yugi, dying down to reveal the armour now fit him perfectly.

"Me?" Yugi poked it, "You picked the wrong guy, you want him over there…" He looked at Yami, whose face revealed none of the emotions that Yugi could sense boiling below the surface.

"You're both warriors, Yugi." Joey said slowly. "I guess the armour had to make a choice…"

"Someone has to wear it." Solomon nodded.

Serenity was aware of the tension between Yugi and Yami as Yugi found he couldn't remove the armour, but didn't know what to say.

"Yami…" Yugi hesitated.

Ombre was aware that Yugi's new equipment would most likely make him a target. She was also aware that Yami really wouldn't want Yugi wearing that armour… but there was no choice. The game had to be played, the rules adhered to and Yugi had to be capable of winning the game, because the game itself wouldn't have chosen him otherwise.

That was the only good point about playing a Shadow Game.

It ALWAYS had to be fair…

"We have to go." Solomon said firmly, looking at the 'twins'. "There's nothing Yugi can do about being chosen, Yami."

"I'm not angry." Yami replied, waving it off.

He was though, Yugi could sense it and, though he took point as they passed through the golden light, he couldn't help feeling that it was Yami who was supposed to be in the armour, not him.

* * *

Dudley Dursley was oblivious, he couldn't help it, but even he noticed when Harry snuck off several times over the course of the day to make phone calls, noticed when Sirius Black, Harry's godfather and his guardian, noticed that Harry's phone went off and the teen had wandered off so as to not be a pain, his shoulders would sink and he would gain a look that Dudley couldn't understand.

Something was going on with Harry that Black couldn't help with.

Dudley didn't know how he felt about it. On one hand, his father had taught him that anything that was even slightly unusual was evil or freakish and that he should have nothing to do with it.

And yet here he was, going on a world tour with his freak cousin and his freakish godfather.

He didn't know up from down anymore.

If they hadn't taken him in, he would have been left to fend for himself when his parents had been killed. No-one had wanted to take him in, no one had wanted him… except the cousin that he had tormented for the greater majority of his childhood…

It was taking real effort, but he was trying to change his views on magic and wizards. There was no point to hating the only people who would take him in, and they didn't seem freakish to him when they weren't doing magic…

Was it a betrayal of his parents…?

Dudley tried not to think when he could help it, so all these thoughts weren't exactly welcome, but they were there anyway.

Harry was gone for around five minutes this time and when he wandered back, he was scowling.

"No sign?" Sirius asked.

"None." Harry groaned, sinking into a chair, "It's like they vanished off the face of the Earth…"

"Aliens?" Dudley asked.

Harry sighed and shrugged, trying not to get irritated at his cousin. It wasn't Dudley's fault that Harry's family were missing, that Harry wanted to be with his link partners more then here…

"What do you want to eat?" Sirius asked, passing Harry a menu.

Harry stared at the menu, which was written in both English and German.

"You're going to need your strength for tomorrow's big tournament." Sirius pointed out, "It's supposed to be an international one."

"It will be." Harry nodded, remembering that he had to try to find one of his Clan sisters when he first arrived at the Stroder Corp Tournament. He skimmed the menu and picked out his lunch. "This is what, tournament five?"

"Six." Sirius corrected, "We're doing well so far."

Since the bet had been Sirius's fault, Harry didn't comment. As many Tournaments as they could get to before a set dates, when Harry's group, and his 'rival', his Clan Sister, Mai Valentine, would meet at the Game Shop in Japan.

The one who went to the most Tournaments won…

Harry had been at a few one day things recently and that odd three day thing, and that one two day one…

He wasn't completely sure that this was a particularly good idea, travelling all over the world to visit tournaments that was, but he was enjoying it… he just hoped there was good news before tomorrow's tournament started…


	5. Sand Gets Everywhere

"Well… this is…" Yugi hesitated.

"Irritating?" Joey hazarded a guess, looking around and squinting against the bright sunlight and the wind which was laden with the same stuff that surrounded them.

Sand.

Lots and lots of sand.

"I was going to say new, but irritating works too…" Yugi nodded, looking around at the desert that surrounded them and wondering what, exactly, the task could possibly be all the way out here…

"So are we just supposed to wander around until the task hits us, or…" Ombre cut off and wheeled around as Solomon groaned and his knees buckled.

Joey was there and supporting him before anyone saw the young man move, "You alright, Gramps?"

"Grandpa!" Yugi wheeled around, kneeling by his Grandfather's side.

"Just my old ticker…" Solomon wheezed, trying to reassure them. "I'll be fine."

"Serenity!" Yami didn't mean to snap quite as harshly as he did, but Serenity understood why, calling her Mystical Elf out and using the Elf's ability to ease the pain a bit.

"How are you feeling, Mr Muto?" She asked, searching through her bag in order to see if she'd packed anything that could help.

"Better…" Solomon started, as Serenity let out an irritated groan as she looked through a green bag she'd dug out of her backpack, "What's wrong?"

"I didn't stock up on any of the potions in my first aid kit before I left. I didn't think I'd need it. It was only supposed to be a holiday." Serenity grumbled, more irritated at herself then anything.

"You aren't the only one who didn't think to pack 'just in case'." Yami reassured her.

"With the sort of trouble we get into, I should have packed more gear." Joey said, trying to remember everything he had in his bag. "I don't think I have anything that would be useful in a desert."

"I have suntan lotion." Ombre said, shrugging off her backpack before spotting the looks she was getting, "We were going to India," She pointed out, exasperatedly, "And sunburn is not fun."

"There's a camp over there." Yugi spoke up from where he'd moved to, to get out of the way, pointing to where a small group of sandy white tents were pitched and people were walking about, "Before we do anything, we should…" He hesitated for half a second, glancing at Yami, "We could go and see if the people there know something about the next task."

"Sounds like a plan." Joey nodded, "You alright now Gramps?" He asked turning to Solomon who had stopped leaning on him and was already looking steadier on his feet then he had a few moments ago.

"I'm alright." Solomon waved his concern off, "Lead the way Yugi." He said, giving his grandson a look the others couldn't read, but made Yugi nod and start heading down the dune and to the campsite.

* * *

"Lady Mana?"

Mana wheeled around, calling her staff and almost blasting the poor Magician's Apprentice hovering in the doorway.

Literally hovering.

That explained why she hadn't heard her approaching…

The Dark Magician Girl, who ruled the Dark Kingdom alongside her husband, the Dark Magician, smiled as the Apprentice landed nervously on the floor as Mana took a deep breath and calmed herself down.

She'd been skittish enough since she'd lost her human partner as it was and the attack on the Kingdom by the forces of Medan, the Red Dark Magician, just a day after their return, hadn't helped in the slightest, so when someone had made her jump, they had been lucky not to lose their heads.

"Mahado warned everyone, Rosaline." Mana sighed, recognising the apprentice as one of the group of gossips that seemed to eternally live somewhere near the throne room. "Don't sneak up on me."

"I apologise my Lady." The apprentice seemed properly contrite, "But there is a Light Spellcaster at the gates who is seeking an audience with you."

"With me?" Mana was wary but not completely surprised. Those who came to the castle were more often looking for her husband, Mahado, but there were occasions when the Spellcasters requested an audience with her instead.

"Yes, my lady."

It was normally the weaker Spellcasters, or those who had fallen out of favour with Mahado, but the latter category had mostly put their lot in with Medan in the last few weeks, and she hesitated to leave her child's crib considering everything.

"Who is it?"

"A Millennium Witch, named Aylth."

"Show her up to the nursery." Mana had known it was coming and had been expecting Aylth to come and see her since Wolf had found his own way through to the human world.

"But my lady!"

Mana knew why Rosaline was protesting, a Millennium Witch was a bigger threat then Kisara herself if angered, however, for the time being, they weren't at war with the forces of Light, and Mana was more then aware that she had to speak with Aylth before the end of the summer. "Show Aylth up to the nursery."

"Yes, my lady." The apprentice bowed and vanished. Mana sighed, just knowing this would be all over the castle by sunset.

She swore, sometimes, that this place was worse for rumour mongering then Hogwarts. She supposed it was because they had so little else to do here…

"Lady Mana." The Millennium Witch had reached the door quicker then Mana would have expected and was bowing.

"Rise Aylth, we have much to discuss."

"Lady Kisara tells me that your human partner, may her spirit sleep peacefully, requested that you keep watch over the human girl that I have claimed as mine." The Millennium Witch straightened, straightening her white hat, the pink ribbons trailing over one shoulder.

"Lady Kisara is correct, Kari did request that I look after Hermione." Mana had to fight back the grief. It had been so long since they had last had someone to grieve for that she and all the monsters that had known Kari well, were finding it difficult.

"I ask that you take me with you, the next time that you cross into the human world." Aylth asked without preamble. "I am aware that there are other paths, like the one that the Grey Prince's partner took, but I have been unable to find them…"

"The Grey Prince?" Mana asked with a frown, worried about potential new enemies.

"Surely you know who I mean, the one who is linked to both the Pharaoh of Darkness and the Prince of Light?" Aylth asked with a frown, "The partner of that insufferable Gold Winged Wolf?"

"Oh, Harry." Mana nodded, "I was unaware he been given a title of his own." She sighed, "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised, Harry is neither light or dark, and I guess that would make him grey."

Aylth nodded, not really having anything to say to that.

The Dark Magician Girl gave the Millennium Witch an appraising look, "Aylth, there is much I need to discuss with you, before you cross over fully for the first time." She warned, "Taking a human partner is not an easy thing to do, and cannot be undone with a wave of our staves."

"I have considered the consequences, weighed up the pros and cons and spoken at depth with Lady Kisara."

"Then Kisara has warned you of the bonds that are formed the moment you meet your partner properly, the emotional attachment you'll form, the desire to protect your human…"

"And the way my human will be able to call me halfway across the world if I am needed." Alyth nodded, "I am aware of how dependant I will become. I am also aware of how much stronger this will make Hermione and I."

"Hermione is a rather…"

"Stubborn?"

"I was going to say strong willed." Mana chastised Aylth, half jokingly, "We will need to make sure we can protect her, especially considering the war that is yet to come."

"Is the war the reason that you and Lord Mahado finally allied the Dark Kingdom with the Light Lands?"

"Our Duellists are caught up in a war where the leader of the enemy forces can control the Shadows. This is no time to be fighting amongst ourselves." Mana scowled, looking out the window towards the kingdom's borders, "My Duellist wasn't the first casualty and she won't be the last."

"And Meden insists on civil war, even though a war among humans that can control the Shadows, would affect our world also?" Aylth asked, shocked.

"The Red Dark Magician does not care. Not for the humans, and not for the safety of our world. He cares only for his own goals."

"And what are those goals?"

"Power, vengeance… he has a lot of reasons to hate the occupants of the Dark Palace."

"It was you who defeated his Master, wasn't it?"

"The Magician? Arkana?" Mana asked.

Aylth nodded.

"Yes, I defeated his Master, but he blames Yami and Yugi for another's actions." Mana growled, "It was Marik who drove Arkana insane after he lost the duel. Yugi tried to save his life."

"Have you tried reasoning with him?"

"There is no reasoning with him, we have tried. He drove his own apprentice away, when she tried to reason with him. She's now studying under one of the blue Dark Magicians and has sworn loyalty to Yugi."

"Then what of the forces Meden has gathered?" Aylth asked, "Surely they can see this war is stupid?"

Mana shrugged, having wondered the same thing herself many times. "I don't think they care much either, they had to have had a reason to join Meden and whatever it was, it's obviously good enough for them."

"Lady Mana!" Something careened around the corner and panted out their message as they straightened themselves out, revealing it to be a Black Rose Witch, "Enemy troops… on route to castle… Lord Mahado… gone…called…"

"Bad timing for a Duel, guys." Mana hissed, thinking of Yugi and Yami and hesitating as she glanced at the crib, in which lay her sleeping daughter.

"Go." Aylth nodded at her, "I'll look after your daughter."

"Aylth…" Mana hesitated.

"Aren't we team mates now? Duel Monsters under the same Duelist? I can stand guard until you get back. I scare Dark Monsters more easily then you do, I'm stronger then Medan, even without my special ability and I can boost up far beyond anything he has in his army within seconds."

Mana hesitated for a split second longer, then nodded. "Be careful, Aylth."

"You too, Lady Mana."

Mana left.

* * *

"Hello?" Joey called, looking around the camp, "Anyone home?"

There was the sound of rustling tents, but the people that they'd seen from a distance had all vanished.

Yugi turned to look at the group, "I think we scared them."

"Us?" Joey pretended to look offended, "We're not that scary."

"Have you seen us recently?" Ombre snorted, "We all need a change of clothes and a wash."

"Well, dusty tunnels and zombie fighting aren't exactly the best ways to keep from looking a state." Yami pointed out.

Ombre turned back to the deserted looking camp. "Hello?"

A small girl, with brown hair that was so dark that it was almost black, and dark grey eyes, her hair in pigtails came to stand in front of them.

"Hello." Yugi bowed, "I'm Yugi Muto, this is my family." He indicated those stood behind him.

"We've been waiting for you." The little girl said.

"Waiting?" Yami demanded.

The little girl did little more then give him a passing glance before she turned back to Yugi, causing Yami's irritation to spike and though Yugi didn't look at him, Joey noted the way Yugi tensed up and the way the hikari had to fight not to do so.

"Can we have half an hour?" Joey asked, causing the little girl to stare at him, unblinkingly.

"Why?"

"I want to look over my patient." Serenity caught on that Joey was trying to get a delay, though not why, and pointed to Solomon.

"There's a tent you may rest in." The girl said, looking them over. "While he comes with me." She pointed to Yugi.

"I'm coming too." Yami started forward.

"Yami," Joey shook his head, "I need a hand bro."

"Joey…" Yami glowered.

"If one comes, you all come." The girl said.

"I'll be fine Yami." Yugi nodded, _"Trust me…"_

' _Yugi…'_

" _They won't attack me, the task hasn't started yet. If it had, we would have been made aware. It has to be fair, remember?"_ Yugi winced back as Yami's emotions flared. Concern, confusion, anger… _"Please? If you won't stay, they won't let Serenity check Grandpa over."_

' _I'll stay back.'_ Yami promised. "All right, I'll stay with the others."

"You may use that tent." The girl pointed to the tent to their right, then turned to Yugi, "Prince?"

"I think she's talking to you Yuge." Joey said when Yugi didn't turn around.

Yugi turned around and gave her a questioning look.

"Please, follow me."

Yugi nodded and followed the girl.

Joey walked over and held the tent flap open for Solomon, Serenity and Ombre to walk through, letting it close on Yami. "You and I need to talk, bro."

* * *

"The one we've been waiting for has arrived." The girl said, kneeling down at the side of an ancient looking man, who Yugi bowed to respectfully.

The man nodded back, without saying a word and raised his hands, blue fire forming in the palm of his hands, the two balls joining together and when it faded, he was holding a scroll, which the girl brought over to the confused young man.

"The elder wants you to have this." She said, handing it over. "It will guide you on our journey."

"Do I have to read it now, or can I wait until I'm back with the others?"

"You should read it now." The girl said insistently, "The others can read it later. One of your number should remember the words anyway."

"What?"

"Please, just… read."

Yugi nodded and unfurled the parchment, "Trial Number One, Silence the Whisper that Rides the Desert Wind."

The wind picked up, the sand blowing through it increasing.

"Turn back!" It was a whispering voice that seemed to come from all directions and none at the same time.

"What?"

"That was the whisper that rides the desert wind." The girl said, her whole demeanour changing, her shoulders sinking, her eyes closing, "You should take this." She took off her pendant. Until that point, Yugi hadn't really noticed it, but as she put it into his empty hand, he examined it closely. It was a pentagram, with five rubies set into it. "Give it to an advisor you trust. Don't lose it."

"Thank you."

"The last visitor taught us that the answer lies in the eye of the storm." The girl said.

The voice cackled evilly, cutting off Yugi's question about the 'last visitor'.

"You should join your family." The girl indicated the door.

"Thank you." Yugi bowed and left.

* * *

"You and I need to talk, bro."

"Joey…" Yami growled.

"Don't 'Joey' me." Joey growled back, "You need to stop doing or thinking whatever it is you're doing or thinking that's making Yuge hesitate. If Yuge can't think on his feet and follow his instincts, we'll lose."

"I'm not doing…"

"So what is it you're thinking that's throwing Yuge off balance? Is it just that the game chose to put him in danger and you're getting annoyed at it or…?"

"I'm fine, Joey."

"You're obviously not fine. If we lose because you're lying and my sister gets hurt because of it, I'm going to hurt you, a lot."

There was a moment where the two glowered at each other and then Yami's shoulders sank and he sighed, fully aware that Joey would make good on his threat, "I can't help it."

"Help what, Yami?"

"I'm worried, I'm irritated that Yugi's been thrown into danger again…"

"You're annoyed it's not you in the armour."

"No!" Joey gave Yami a disbelieving look, "Yes…"

"Thought so." Joey snorted, "He has to fly on his own at some point, Yams."

"Yams again?" Yami half mock scowled.

"You're missing my point." Joey waved it off, "You can't keep coddling Yugi; he _is_ your heir for Ra's sake! If he has to go through you every time he wants to make a decision, what's he going to be like when you go?"

"I…"

"You will leave Yami, we all know it. You want to find your memories and then you'll go, once it's safe to do so. No one wants to talk about it, Yuge least of all, but we all know that's what you want, to get your memories and finally rest. And if you break Yugi's confidence in himself by acting the way you are, he's not going to be able to cope when you do. He has to be able to make his own decisions, lead us his own way, make his own mistakes, without feeling like you're judging him every step of the way!"

"I'm not…" Yami tried to butt in.

"Then stop being angry that it's not you who gets to play hero this time, and just back Yuge up in whatever way he needs you to. Let him take the lead role for a change."

"Joey…" Yami snapped.

"What?" Joey snapped back.

"Guys, we can hear you in here." Ombre poked her head out of the tent.

"How's Gramps?" Joey asked, not missing a beat.

"Feeling much better." The old man, who was considered by all of the young men and women there to be their Grandfather, stepped out of the tent. "Now, what's this row about?"

"Turn back." The wind picked up, driving sand into their eyes and noses and a women's voice whispered from all directions.

"What the?" Serenity gasped, dashing out of the tent and to her brother's side.

"The first task?" Ombre guessed. "What should we do?" She asked, turning to Yami.

"Nothing until Yugi gets back." Joey said, looking at Yami. "Yugi got the armour; it's Yugi that has to lead us."

There was a moment where the tension in the air was so thick that you could cut it with a knife, and then Yami nodded.

The same voice cackled evilly, and again it was impossible to tell where it was coming from.

"I hope he gets back soon."

"Guys!" Yugi reached them, having run the route from the tent with the old man in to the one they'd been allowed to rest in, and handed over the parchment. "That voice. It's the first task."

"Silence the whisper that rides the desert wind?" Solomon frowned.

"That's not really a helpful clue." Joey scowled.

"Apparently the answer lies in the eye of the storm." Yugi said, frowning slightly as Yami looked away from him, "They gave me that much of a hint."

"Silence a voice? How? Do we tell it to shut up?" Ombre snorted.

"I'm guessing we have to tell whoever it belongs to shut up."

"Or defeat the owner." Yugi nodded, well versed in the way the shadows worked. Reasoning didn't get you out of Shadow Games, only victories did.

"So what's the plan?" Serenity asked, turning to Yugi.

"Uhhh…" Yugi squeaked, looking at Yami for a second before seeming to centre himself and nodding, "We go out into the desert, away from the villagers and we try to attract the 'voice that rides the desert winds'."

"Lead the way!" Joey grinned, "Let's take it down!"

Yugi smiled slightly, nodded and led them out.

* * *

Robyn, who was holed up in a motel room, hiding, just as she had told Yugi she would be, was trying to scry.

She'd seen many futures expanding from this summer, and there were many of chances for things to go favourably or badly in the events that were to come, and as such there were just as many possible futures.

But the near future was fogging, making it near impossible to predict.

There were many theories about why this happened, but Robyn favoured the idea that a foretold event was taking place, and that viewing the future at this point would influence the choice about to be made.

So instead she was using ink and water, adding ink to the surface of the water, to see the present.

Robyn couldn't Scry into the future, very few used this method to see the future as it was far too precise. But for seeing the present it was near prefect. At least for this purpose, although it worried her slightly that for it to be working as well as it was, someone was already watching the group rather intently.

It was enough to get the answers that she was looking for, how they were doing in the game they'd entered, how far they had gotten…

She watched the images, as the ink danced it formed into one image and slowly shifted into another and another, almost like a shadow puppet show, making notes and thinking.

The mobile phone, which she'd placed at her side when she'd first started scrying rang without warning, causing her to jump and almost scattering the bowl.

Her heart pounded, she hadn't been startled like this since…

The tone pounded against her ears, and she mashed the buttons.

There were a grand total of two people who had her number, and one was beyond even Kaiba's network service.

"Luna."

Her third cousin if her memory of the family tree was to be believed, not that she was going to check… unless Luna had a copy… not that it was important.

"Hello Robyn." Luna said, sounding a little flustered, "I thought you'd want to know that Yugi and the others have gone missing."

"I know."

"Oh… good." Luna didn't sound that relieved, "Mokuba said he'd pass my message on to Seto, but I thought you might know which way the future is flowing, all I'm getting is fog."

Robyn hummed and looked back at her bowl of water, adding another drop and scowling at the pattern that formed. "The future is changing."

"Yes…" Luna hesitated for a moment, "Do you know what is happening?"

Robyn considered it, as she jotted down the pattern. "Did he say why?"

"Mokuba?"

"Hmmm."

"They are missing, they are _your_ family, don't you care?"

"They don't need my help." Robyn replied flatly, "They wouldn't take my help."

"It's not Yugi asking."

Robyn flicked at the water, dissolving the small drama taking place in the waters.

"Robyn… please."

"Tell Mr Kaiba that they are looking in the wrong place. Tell them that the eldest Moto is missing as well… and if they want any more have him call himself."

"I can give him this number?"

"You have my permission, but… no…" Robyn lashed out, slamming her hand into the desk, "tell him. It's not safe, but tell him anyway."

Wanting to destroy something, Robyn carefully packed away her supplies, letting the water drain down the sink and dropped onto the bed, screaming into the pillow, tears falling relentlessly.

"Kari…" She shivered, "I don't know what to do any more."

* * *

The wind had picked up as they'd wandered further into the desert.

"Leave this place!" The voice echoed.

"There's the voice again!" Yugi looked around, as if suspecting that the owner was right behind him.

"It sounds like it's getting closer." Serenity said, looking around also.

"Eek!" Ombre leapt towards Yami, who pulled her close as the place where she'd been stood dropped in on itself and a huge pink worm shot out of the ground.

"It's a Medusa Worm…"

"Grandpa!" Yugi called, already loading his Gaia, the Fierce Knight capsule into his launcher, "We'll handle it, stay back!"

Solomon retreated slightly as Yugi's knight was joined by Yami's Dark Magician, Joey's Panther Warrior, Ombre's Criosphinx and Serenity's Ancient Fairy Dragon.

"Panther Warrior! Take it out!" Joey yelled. His monster leapt forward, swiping at the sand worm with its sword. It would have been a clean blow had the worm not retreated underground.

"Where'd it go?" Joey demanded, looking around, trying to see any sort of pattern in the sand that was shifting under their feet.

"That worm has a huge advantage," Yami growled, also looking, "We're fighting in its native environment."

"Gaia! Take it out!" Yugi called, as the worm emerged behind them.

It was only half way out of the hole when the knight on horseback struck it down and it exploded into thousands of tiny fragments.

"Nice one Yuge." Joey grinned.

"It's not over yet." Yugi warned, already shifting to where there were more worms emerging, the voice whispering to them over the winds, the sand in the air thickening.

"Attack!" Four voices echoed, their monsters leaping into action to destroy the worms as the worms spat some kind of sand concoction at them.

Several worms died but nothing happened except that more worms appeared and the sand grew so thick that they were unable to see each other.

"Yugi?" Yami called, trying to see through the sand to where his partner had been stood just a few feet away.

"Give up, Prince." The voice mocked.

"Panther Warrior! There!" Joey's voice was just about audible over the howling winds, "Attack!"

Yugi had to leap back to avoid getting cut in two, landing on his butt, his hand on a capsule, which revealed his Sunset Magician, who glowered at the Panther Warrior, "JOEY! I'm not a worm!" Yugi complained as he recalled his Fierce Knight.

"Sorry Yuge!"

"Ancient Fairy Dragon, help!" Serenity squeaked, as a worm bore down on her, nearly eating her before she even noticed that it was there.

"Hold fire!" Yugi called, "If we try and fight in this, we'll just take each other out! Only attack if you're one hundred percent sure it's a worm!"

' _Yugi, I think the worms are a…'_

" _Distraction, I know."_ Yugi returned, thinking quickly, _"I need to get to the 'voice that rides the desert winds'."_

"The sand shall swallow you all!" The voice chuckled, sounding all too amused about their predicament. Unsurprising considering that she was the one causing it.

If it was possible, the air became even more laden with sand, to the point where it was difficult to breathe or see more then a foot away. Their monsters vanished almost completely.

"Give up! Fighting me is futile!" The voice sniggered. "You fools, turn back. I'm invincible!"

"Serenity, get your dragon above the storm, find out where the eye of the storm is!" Yugi shouted.

"Right. Ancient one!"

They could just about hear the dragon's roar as it shot skyward, getting above the sand clouds and spotting the eye of the storm.

Serenity's scream caught the attention of all there as a worm spat something on her and her legs turned to stone and the petrifaction continued up her legs and didn't stop until Serenity was a stone statue.

"Serenity! No!" Joey reached his sister's side, as Ancient Fairy Dragon roared and landed, nudging her partner.

"Ahh!"

"No!"

"Damn!"

Ombre, Yami and Joey were hit by the worms.

' _Yugi, take down…'_

Yugi froze for a critical second as Yami's mental voice went silent, and it was only through the actions of his Sunset Magician that he didn't join his friends as statues.

"YAMI!" Yugi wriggled, trying to get down as Sunset took him above the storm and out of reach of the worms.

"Behold, the source of the storm." It was a man's voice this time, one that shouldn't have been there, but one that surprised Yugi enough to make him stop panicking and look at the huge black tornado that was just to his left.

"The eye of the storm… the tornado's eye!" Yugi realised, "Sunset Magician take me down there, I have to reach the eye before something worse happens to my friends!"

Sunset Magician dropped him on the sand in order to raise a hand and blast an attacking worm with a blast that was full of darkness and stars.

"Thanks, but I can't afford to lose you," Yugi said, recalling the Spellcaster, "Now, to find the eye of that storm…"

"You'll never find me." The voice mocked.

Yugi glowered at the air in general and ran forward, towards where the storm had been just a few moments ago.

It shouldn't have been possible, but the wind picked up even further, making Yugi struggle against it, while dodging attacks from the worms. One came up right under him, knocking him flying, and forcing him to roll out of the way of another attack, this one just missing his foot by inches.

"Turn back, Prince." The voice mocked, "You can't beat me."

Yugi staggered, falling to his hands and knees as he tripped over a really uneven dune and trying to catch his breath. "So…close…" He panted, the tornado's base in sight now, as it flung sand away from it. "Just… have to…"

He got to his feet, walking against the wind. _"I have to save the others…"_

The voice laughed again, the outline of someone obvious now as Yugi struggled forwards.

He collapsed.

* * *

Hermione had given up trying to read an hour ago and now sleep was refusing to come.

At this moment of time she was counting squiggles on her ceiling, doing something, anything to try to keep her mind of her missing family and to a point where she could sleep.

It was impossible.

It had been easier when she hadn't known when her friends were in trouble, because then at least she hadn't been unable to sleep because there was nothing she could do and because she was unable to travel to somewhere where she could be useful.

She wanted to go to Japan and help Seto with his organising, or go to India and join the search team.

Instead she had found out that there were exactly 7942 funny little squiggles on her ceiling caused by the artex.

She gave up, turned her bedside lamp on and pulled the book she'd been reading out from under the bed.

If she wasn't going to sleep, she could at least try and look up something useful.

She just hoped that if she did fall asleep, that her mobile phone would be loud enough to wake her if they found anything. It normally lived downstairs, on the arm of the chair that she always curled up in with a good book, but at the moment the phone was resting quite peacefully on the bedside cabinet.

She glowered at it, for not having rung for the last few hours and then started reading.

She just hoped there was something useful in this one.

* * *

Yugi looked down at himself, examining the blue gauntlets which faded to purple at the tips of the gloves, and the blue and purple armour that surrounded his torso, his legs and seemed to form wings of some kind behind him, not to mention the black crown that he now wore.

"Wow, so this is what merging with Sunset Magician does…" Yugi breathed, making a mental note to thank the man who had spoken with him, even if it had been an illusion or a hallucination brought on when he'd collapsed. He looked up at the tornado. "Now to save my friends."

"Then bring it on, princeling."

Yugi leapt and his wings kept him going upwards, flying directly at the tornado and through into the eye, where a woman in red clothes and flying on a broom stick laughed at them.

"A Sand Witch!" Yugi realised, flying up to her level and raising his hand.

"Demons, strike him down!" She screeched, raising her own hand. Creatures leapt out at Yugi from the sand trapped in the tornado, forcing him upwards as he dodged their attacks and blasted them away, nearly reaching the Sand Witch again, to try to take her down when a huge hand, made completely out of sand grasped him, crushing him in it's grip.

She sniggered, convinced he was defeated, either crushed or suffocating in the hand's grip.

Right up until the hand exploded in a burst of stars and dark energy and Yugi flew right at her, "Starlight Blast!" He gasped, focusing his own power and the power that Sunset Magician was lending him while they were merged, and blasting the Sand Witch at point blank range.

She screamed and exploded into tiny little fragments.

* * *

Harry's head shot up from his mug of hot chocolate, spilling the contents all down his front.

"What's wrong?" Sirius demanded, "Are you burnt?"

"The chocolate was almost cold." Harry said, setting it aside and walking out onto the balcony, which looked out over the hotel's courtyard, which was bathed in starlight and the lights from many windows.

"Harry?" Dudley asked.

"Yugi… Yami…"

"You can sense them again?"

"No," Harry shook his head, "But I thought I felt…"

 _Emotional echo._ Wolf said, his tone sounding as if he was stating the obvious. _Something must have happened._

"What do you mean?" Harry demanded, turning to glower at the golden furred wolf.

_Even if the link is broken, if there are strong enough emotions, the echo can be felt from great distances._

"So something bad's just happened?" Sirius hazarded.

 _Or something really good._ Wolf turned to look at his partner. _There's nothing we can do about it at the moment._

"I know but…"

 _Aren't you supposed to call your Mate about now?_ Wolf asked, stretching and wandering over to the bowl of water which was resting on the floor.

"Luna's not my…"

_Mate, girlfriend, it's all the same in the end._

"It's important to stick to your schedule Harry." Sirius sniggered, "Its good practice for when you have a wife to whip you into shape."

"Sirius…" Harry groaned.

"Can't keep your girlfriend waiting." Dudley wandered over and poked him, causing Wolf to growl.

Harry retreated to the chair he'd been sat in and pulled his phone out as Wolf curled up at his feet. "She'd understand." He said, staring at it. He sighed, flipping it open and pressing a couple of keys before putting the phone to his ear, "Hey Luna…"

* * *

The storm was dying down quickly as Solomon got to his feet, having been forced to sit out the whole time because of his lack of monsters. "Yugi must have done it."

Joey took a deep breath of sand free air, well as sand free as desert got normally, as the stone petrifaction started fading, finally getting past his chest and fading completely as it reached his shoes. He could feel sand up his trouser legs and down his top, and groaned, knowing just how long it would take to get rid of all the sand.

"Big brother!" Serenity gasped, clinging onto him.

"Easy, Serenity." Joey hugged her. "We're free."

"Yugi must have completed the task." Ombre said, looking around.

"But where is he?" Yami scowled, looking around, sensing that Yugi was hurt and tired and wanting to check that his hikari was still standing.

"Hey guys!" Yugi called, from the top of a dune, grinning, "Thank the Gods you're alright."

"Wow Yuge." Joey stared at him, the blue armour, which faded to purple at the bottom and was complimented with a black crown, shining in the desert sunlight. "Looking good. Where'd you get the armour?"

"I merged with Sunset Magician." Yugi said, looking at his gauntlets properly in the sunlight.

"How?"

"There was a man… out in the storm…" Yugi looked around. "At least, I think there was…"

"Quite possibly." Ombre said, noting that Yami was almost at the top of the dune that Yugi was stood on. "Anything's possible."

"I bet Harry could do with some armour like that, do you think your friend has some we could…" Joey cut off as Yugi's armour vanished in a burst of golden light and Yugi cried out, collapsing.

Yami caught him and as he carefully led Yugi down, the others rushed over and knelt down at Yugi's side. _'Yugi?'_ He asked fearfully, shocked at the amount that the pain had increased once the armour had vanished, sending his own energy down the link to boost his hikari's flagging strength.

" _I'll be fine…"_ Yugi sent, the energy Yami was sending him flowing straight into his reserves without Yugi even having to accept it. _"Just… let me… catch my breath…"_

Serenity was concerned. She could see Yugi's breathing was heavy and laboured, but there was nothing she could do to help without her wand and, what seemed like an hour later, but was in fact only a couple of minutes, as the young man opened his eyes, he tried to look reassuring. "Hey." He said weakly, sitting up with Yami's help. "Sorry, I guess that battle was rougher on me then I realised…"

Yami didn't buy it, sure that Yugi knew exactly how hard this would be, but didn't say anything, as the relief the others felt, about the fact that Yugi was awake and aware, was evident in the others. They, like Yami, were afraid that Yugi had seriously injured himself in the fight.

"Here Yuge." Joey handed over a bottle of water from his pack, rather glad he'd gone back for the bags.

Yugi gulped it down quickly, draining the entire bottle, and then looked at it, feeling rather guilty. "Sorry guys."

His voice didn't sound much better and as Yami helped him to his feet, supporting Yugi and watching him with a rather concerned look, Serenity saw the slowed movements and the brief grimace that told her that he was probably in a lot more pain then he was letting on.

"Yugi…"

"I'll be fine, Serenity. We don't have time to worry about me." Yugi sounded sure of himself. Yami understood exactly what Yugi was doing.

Yugi had to stay strong, make the others believe that he was alright, so that they didn't have another thing to worry about, and so they didn't stop to see just how much he hurt, and waste time, when it was of the essence…

He couldn't hide it from Yami, not when there were only certain levels of pain you could block and it had yet to occur to Yugi to even try to close the link, but he could try to hide it from the others…

There was something Yugi could do though… Yami's eyes widened in surprise when he felt the energy transfer break off and he frowned at Yugi.

" _Don't send all your energy to me."_ Yugi still sounded knackered, _"Or you'll be in the same state I am."_

' _You're the one with the armour, Yugi. You're the one that has to lead us out of here.'_

" _Don't you dare start that!"_ Yugi sent the mental equivalent of a scowl, _"I need you, so don't you dare get yourself killed because you let me drain too much of your energy."_

' _Alright.'_ It was obvious from Yami's tone that he didn't agree with Yugi's thoughts on the matter, but Yugi was too tired to press it.

"Yugi, I want to examine you when we get out of here." Serenity said quietly, still worried about the shortness of breath and the eyes that were dulled by pain.

Yami's eyes glimmered in amusement, as Yugi nodded resignedly.

"So, where do we go now?" Joey asked, getting to his feet and looking around.

"Back isn't an option." Ombre scowled, looking around also, "The village is gone."

"Do you think the sandstorm blew it away?"

"Back isn't an option, remember guys?" Yami reminded them, "This is a game; we can't win if we go backwards instead of forwards."

"Umm, those statues look familiar." Serenity pointed to a small shrine, which had been revealed by the sandstorm and inside which were statues of the villagers…

"So they were just illusions? Part of the test?" Ombre asked.

"Guides perhaps." Yami nodded.

Serenity picked up the pentagonal pendant that had fallen out of Yugi's pocket when he'd collapsed, surprised when it lit up with a reddish glow, one of its purple sides turning a rather deep shade of red.

"Yugi, what's this?" She asked.

"I think it's important." Yugi said, leaning heavily on Yami. "The villagers told me I shouldn't lose it."

"One of the sides just changed colour. Maybe it's a beacon that shows when we've completed the test…" Serenity suggested.

"Could well be." Yami nodded.

"Look after it for me?" Yugi asked her.

Serenity nodded.

There was silence for half a minute and then Serenity yelped and Joey and Ombre moved between the others and the suddenly rising column of sand.

"Not another worm!" Joey yelped as Yugi reached for his capsule, ready to merge with Sunset Magician again if necessary.

Once the sand started falling again, what had actually emerged was a door that opened by itself and opened onto nothing but yet another bright light.

"Guess that's our cue to move on." Solomon said, having stayed quiet for most of the conversation.

"Let's go then!" Joey nodded, "The sooner the better."

"Right!" Yugi nodded, moved away from Yami and took the first step, vanishing into the light without a second thought.


	6. Wings

The sun was rising westward, according to the compass, but that just showed how reliable 'muggle' devices were in a magical realm. Or... just maybe, how completely strange this magical realm was.

Weren't these ancient magicians meant to live and die by the sun, or did someone just decide they wanted the sun to rise the wrong way?

Or maybe it was a trick, or a trap... or a game? Or maybe it was just the craziness of the creation of any world that meant something had to be wrong, just to show this was not the real world.

"The sun's rising in the wrong direction." Solomon said, looking around, standing, with Ombre, outside the cave they'd decided to stop in last night… or what passed for a night here, after Yugi had slipped into unconsciousness not long after their arrival on this floating island.

There had been talk, for a while, of continuing on, taking the scroll that had appeared when they'd decided to let Yugi rest, and completing the task on their own, but since they had no idea if they COULD complete the task without Yugi and the armour, or whether, if they left Yugi and whoever was looking after him behind, they'd move on without them, they had left the scroll untouched and depending on Yugi's condition when he woke up, they would decide what move to make next.

"We're on an island that's floating above the clouds, in a game world with rules that appear to change depending on the area we're in, and you're complaining about the sun rising the wrong way?" Joey asked, yawning as he stretched and, having pulled himself out of his sleeping bag far earlier then anyone would expect of the young man, who was almost as bad as Yami when it came to mornings, exited the cave and started raiding his backpack for something edible or drinkable.

"It just seems... wrong. It's something a modern man would do, not the man who was supposed to have built this." Ombre frowned, "In ancient times, entire ways of life revolved around the sun, the entire day was timed by it, so there is no way that someone from around the time of Alexander the Great would be able to mess up what side the sun rose from accidentally."

"Perhaps they were bored." Joey offered.

"Bored!" Ombre glowered at him. Joey didn't feel like responding though, he'd managed to find a chocolate bar that hadn't been eaten by the wolves, since it had been wrapped in a pair of socks and buried underneath the cooking equipment and the school books, though why he had packed his school books to go on holiday with him was beyond him. Too much time with Hermione perhaps… or Kari…

"Morning Yami." Solomon offered as Yami leant heavily on the edge of the cave entrance, wanting to get out of the darkness of the interior of the cave, but not willing to go much farther until Yugi awoke.

"Morning Grandpa, morning guys." Yami offered back, not really awake but unable to sleep much later, worry keeping his mind active long after his body had crashed out. One of the disadvantages of having access to your soul room was that your mind often ended up there when there was something keeping your mind active.

"How's Yugi?"

"Still out." Yami scowled, "He's been out like a light since he collapsed."

"If he doesn't wake up soon, we're going to have to do something."

"I don't want to wake him."

"You might have to." Joey pointed out.

"You try getting the mental equivalent of a boot to the head and you see how you like it." Yami replied, still scowling, remembering the few mornings that he had NOT wanted to get out of bed and it had taken the mental equivalent of a bucket of water to wake him up, and which had normally resulted in Yugi chucking something at him. Yami's eyes flickered to the interior of the cave, "Hey…"

"I'm up…" Yugi's drowsy voice replied.

"Chocolate." Joey waved the bar at Yami, "Think it'll help Yuge?"

"I think we should share it if it's the only food we've got." Yugi said, stepping out of the cave and into the incredibly bright sunlight, blinking a few times to try to get used to it, trying to straighten himself out. Sorry guys, how long was I out?"

"Long enough to give Yami a heart attack…again." Joey snorted. "How you feeling?"

"I'm ok."

"Yugi…"

"What?"

"That's not an answer."

"You didn't give me one."

"Well I have it in hours, but I bet Yami could tell you how many seconds."

"Please tell me you slept." Yugi glowered at his dark.

"I got some sleep." Yami shrugged.

"Am I the last one awake?" Serenity's voice floated out of the cave, then, "Yugi, back in bed till I've checked you over." She snapped.

"She's as bad as Madam Pomfrey." Ombre snorted as Yugi quickly headed back inside.

"Healer in training." Yami snorted. "They have to be terrifying or their patients would never listen to them."

"So what's the plan?" Joey asked.

"Share the chocolate." Yugi called out, making Yami smile slightly. "Did you complete the task already?"

"We haven't even looked at the scroll yet." Ombre replied.

"Guys! What if we've missed the task?"

"It can't start until we've read the scroll, surely." Serenity pitched in, "If it has to be fair, I mean. It's not a fair test if we don't know the riddle."

"But you had the… yow… riddle."

Joey and Ombre exchanged looks, 'yow' was not a good thing to hear when someone was in the middle of a medical examination, or as close to one as they could get out here.

"We decided that since it was you the armour went to, we would wait for you to wake up, before we made any decisions." Solomon said, standing just to one side of the cave entrance.

Yami sensed Yugi's irritation and felt the young man clamp it down. "Where is… never mind."

"Yugi, wait…"

"When light is extinguished the true test begins, for a creature of darkness it brings," Yugi had already started reading, causing the others to rush in, piling into the cavern to listen properly, "But only the righteous and peaceful shall pass and receive the endowment of wings." Yugi frowned, "That only sounds like half the riddle…"

"So where's the other half?" Joey asked, looking around.

"I don't know."

* * *

The sun had risen just a few hours ago, but Seto Kaiba had been up for longer then most people would consider sane.

Mokuba had insisted on coming into work with him, and was currently curled up on the soft leather sofa that rested to one side of his office, having started doing something on his laptop and fallen asleep a couple of hours ago.

Since there was little Mokuba could do to assist him in what he was currently doing, Seto hadn't woken him, just moved the laptop onto the table and actually used his Trench Coat of Doom © for something other then intimidation, putting it over his brother to keep him warm.

He was waiting on some information from the museums on Mr Muto… Solomon… Seto didn't know what to call the man that was their Clan Head and had said that they could call him Grandpa. Mokuba was still testing it out, but it didn't feel natural coming from Seto, especially since he was unaware of exactly how Solomon really felt about having him in his family… Mr Muto's assistants and colleagues on any digs that they had information on, since Mr Muto had been on a dig when the whole lot of them had gone missing, apparently.

Meanwhile, he was working on a design brief for the latest in the newest series of Monster World games. The first had been a game called Spirit Hearts, a virtual reality game released long before they had gone to Hogwarts, the first one that the company had worked on after Kari had joined them, the one that had gone so horribly wrong. He'd learnt his lesson then, and had not lowered the safeties, on the game world that the games all took place within, since.

The phone rang and before Seto could answer it, Mokuba had woken up, his hand automatically going to his mobile before Mokuba's brain caught up with his body, causing him to put the mobile phone down and look over to the desk where Seto had answered the phone on his desk and was snapping out a bunch of questions and answers.

Mokuba watched as Seto steadily shredded a piece of paper into pieces so tiny it would probably take the cleaner a hundred years to find them all, as he mentioned a pyramid and barriers and told whoever was on the phone that he would be there in a few hours, before putting the phone down.

"Seto?"

"They think they've found something."

"A pyramid?" Mokuba asked, "In India?"

"A Pyramid with protective barriers around it, stopping people from going in."

"If our team can't get in…"

"The Muggles on the team can't get in, they can't even see it, they've been walking around it wondering where the others have gone."

"Muggle repellent charms?"

"Looks like it."

"Why a pyramid? Surely it's obvious enough that someone magical is going to notice a pyramid being thousands of miles from Egypt." Mokuba frowned.

"How else would you get the attention of a former archaeologist?"

"But if they could interfere with transport, why kidnap Solo…Grandpa?"

"Because Yugi would do anything if his grandfather was in danger." Seto scowled, trying not to think of…

"Like in Duellist Kingdom." Mokuba murmured, remembering how Pegasus had taken Yugi's grandfather, held him prisoner and defeated Seto all too easily.

"Exactly." Seto growled, hating every reminder of his failure to protect his brother.

"So we're going to India?"

"No."

"Huh?"

"You're not coming."

"You can't leave me behind."

"I'm not taking you into danger."

"How do you know that they're not waiting for you to leave me alone so they can grab me?"

Seto opened his mouth to speak, but Mokuba was already talking again.

"I can defend myself, Seto, leaving me behind isn't a good idea. Remember, bodyguards can be bribed." Mokuba grinned slightly, pulling the winning argument out of his hat, "And do you really want to ask Noa to watch over me?"

"Fine, but you're to stay at my side at all times."

"I promise."

"And if I tell you to retreat, you leave. Got it?"

"On dragon back if I have to."

"Give a moment to reorganise my schedule, then you can go and pack."

"I already have a bag packed." Mokuba grinned, pulling out a carry-all from behind the sofa he was led on, "Are we taking the Blue Eyes White Jet?"

"It's too conspicuous." Seto shook his head, unsure whether to be amused or irritated by his brother's confidence in his ability to manipulate him.

"True but there's less chance of it being hijacked."

"Not if I pilot the private jet."

"Seto, all our private jets have the Kaiba Corp logo on." Mokuba said, trying not to facepalm.

"Still less obvious then a giant white dragon."

"Whatever you think is best." Mokuba sighed, convinced that whoever had kidnapped Yugi and the others would expect Kaiba Corp to get involved, since they were implicated and not particularly fond of the idea of being kidnapped… again.

Seto considered for a moment, as he quickly totalled up how many appointments he could blow off for no reason and how many he would have to reschedule, and slipped Yami's Dark Magician card into his deck box for when he found the group, then dialled a number that he knew far too well. "This is Seto Kaiba. Yes, I'm aware of how early it is. Prep BlueEyes 01 for take off. Yes, now. No, this is not a prank call." Seto glowered at his brother, who was giggling in the background. "Hello?" Seto had to fight really hard to avoid smashing the phone. "He put the phone down on me."

Mokuba was torn between concern for the poor bloke who had answered the phone and a fit of unstoppable giggles at the expression on Seto's face.

Seto didn't even bother to toy with the idea of phoning again, he just picked up a list of numbers, grabbed his bag and briefcase and left, Mokuba close behind.

"It is rather early, Seto." Mokuba offered.

Seto was already on his mobile, and Mokuba followed quietly behind, remembering, far too late, that they hadn't had breakfast yet. Well, he supposed that he could send someone out while they were waiting for the jet to be prepped…

" _Note to self."_ Mokuba thought as he followed Seto into the limo, _"Phone everyone… later."_ He had a funny feeling that he'd get his head bitten off if he phoned anyone at this time of the morning, especially considering the different time zones. It wasn't like he didn't have time, it would take hours for the jet to be ready to fly, and then they'd have to get permission for their flight path…

Seto loved flying, but the paperwork was a nightmare.

"Seto, can we get some breakfast once you've ripped the guy's head off?" Mokuba poked his brother, who glanced at him for a moment, nodded and carried on his conversation. He had Hogwarts to thank for that, before they'd gone, Seto could easily go a whole day without eating and unfortunately, he used to forget that the people around him couldn't.

Mokuba's phone rang, and within a bar and a half of his, by now, easily recognisable ringtone, he had answered it. "Harry? It's six am here, it has to be ten in… go to bed. You'll be useless tomorrow if you don't sleep. Actually, I'm glad you phoned, we might have a lead… I'll give you the short version and give you more info once you've had some sleep…"

* * *

"Were there two scrolls?" Yugi asked, standing up, finally and looking at the others.

"No."

"Then there has to be something we're missing." Yugi frowned.

"Perhaps you're reading it wrong." Solomon said, the caught Yugi's look, "Not that you had a bad teacher, but…"

"Here." Yugi handed it over, and Solomon took it outside to read.

"You ok, Yuge?" Joey asked as Yugi hesitated at the doorway.

"If I'm out that long again, you have to go on without me."

"No." Yami's tone was firm and slightly angry.

"We may have missed a clue because you waited for me, if we make it through the task, it can't happen again."

"You expect us to leave you behind?" Now Joey was irritated.

"Not expect, want, but don't expect." Yugi sighed.

"Yugi, would you leave us behind?" Serenity asked quietly, making all the young men wheel around to look at her.

"Never." Yugi's tone was just as firm as Yami's had been a moment ago. "I'd never walk out on my friends."

"Then perhaps you should only ask of us what you, yourself, are willing to do?"

"But…"

"We're not going to leave you behind, no matter how exhausted or injured you are." Joey growled at him.

"I won't let you sacrifice yourself for your family." Ombre said, giving him a look that made him cringe back. "I lost my hikari that way; I'm not losing a brother."

"Sorry Ombre." Yugi smiled apologetically, but sadly. "Sorry." He apologised to Yami, Joey and Serenity.

"Honestly Yuge, you should know us better then that by now." Joey waved it off, though the irritation was still there. "Leave you behind…" He shook his head and exited the cave, followed by his sister, and moments later popped his head back in. "Gramps says your translation was screwy."

"What?" Yugi yelped, exiting quickly and examining the scroll. "The letters aren't glowing…"

"Glowing?"

"Uh huh." Yugi nodded, "Green."

"So what do this say?"

"The trial of light and shadow." Solomon read, as Joey took his customary place behind and to the right of Yugi and Yami stood next to Solomon, "It says, once a day the unbreakable stone appears in the Valley of Light, to achieve the impossible fight with a power that's greater then physical might."

"Two riddles?"

"No," Yugi got it, "One interconnecting riddle, hidden on the same paper, watch." Yugi took it inside and the writing changed, glowing green with the riddle he had read out earlier.

"I get it." Yami nodded, "It's the trial of light AND shadow, so you can only read the light part in the sun and the shadow part in a cave or in shadows."

"We'd better find the Valley of Light as soon as possible." Yugi said, thinking. "Or we'll have to wait for tomorrow."

"I'll look." Joey started reaching for his capsules.

"We'll look together." Yugi said, shaking his head slightly.

"Alright, lead the way."

They headed in the opposite direction to the way they had come, having seen no valleys while trying to find somewhere to take shelter from the sun, towards the mountain range, successfully finding the only valley for miles and climbing down into the crevice carefully.

"You think this is it?" Serenity asked.

"We'll know in an hour or so." Ombre replied, looking towards the sky and working out the time.

"So we just wait?"

"Guess so."

"Anyone up for a game of Duel Monsters?"

"Joey!"

"What?"

"I'm in."

"Yami!"

"We haven't got anything better to do till midday." Yami said, easily flipping open his deck box and shuffling the cards, "Besides, it's won't take me and Mahado long to beat Joey." Yami drew, expecting to draw his Dark Magician card, only to find he'd drawn Sangan.

Joey sniggered and Ombre looked amused.

"That's odd…" Yami tried it again, this time drawing The Tricky.

"I think you've irritated him." Yugi frowned, taking the deck from Yami and looking through. "You did put him in, right?"

"Of course." Yami snatched it back, searching, before cussing in several languages and looking around.

"Don't tell me you lost his card." Yugi groaned.

Yami examined his deck bag, "It's ripped."

"He could be anywhere."

"What do we do?"

"I can't ask when you had the card last, because we haven't checked our decks since the Portkey broke." Yugi said, checking his thoroughly. "Mine's fine."

"Mine too." Joey said, checking quickly.

"And mine." Ombre and Solomon nodded.

"Mine was in my bag, but its okay." Serenity said.

"So it's just Mahado's card that's missing…"

Solomon frowned, the card had been his originally, then Yugi's and then Yami's and he was rather protective of that card, but was there time to look for it?

"I'll go. We have an hour right?" Joey asked, reaching for his Baby Dragon capsule.

Yami hesitated, torn between looking and staying with Yugi.

"I'll be okay, I'll buy you time to look, if it comes to that." Yugi nodded, "But you'll only be able to search the island. There was no door backwards."

"If the card got lost at any point, I would have thought it would be when we were running from the wolves, or fighting the worms…" Ombre frowned.

Yami groaned.

"Well, here's a plus side. You won't have to worry about Bakura anymore, because Mahado's gonna kill you." Joey snorted.

"Mahado wouldn't kill Yami." Yugi said patiently and with a small smile.

"Na, I'm sure he could delegate. Besides he pulls the 'disappointed' stunt with you guys." Joey snorted.

"I don't think losing his card justifies just a 'disappointed'." Yami looked towards the sky.

"Go." Yugi urged.

"We'll be back in time." Joey nodded, "Capsule launch."

Baby Dragon appeared, and the pair climbed on.

"Good luck." Yugi nodded.

The pair took off.

"Which card has Yami lost?" Serenity asked.

"The Dark Magician, our Dark Magician, Mahado." Yugi explained. "Losing that card is like…" Yugi paused trying to work out a suitable substitute.

"Me losing Fae's card?"

"Fae?"

"Ancient Fairy Dragon."

"Pretty much." Ombre nodded, not sure how to explain everything else behind the card's importance.

"Our deck used to be based around it." Yugi sighed, thinking of before Yami had gained his own body.

"Our deck?" Serenity frowned.

"I'll explain later, I promise." Yugi replied quickly. "When we're not stuck in some crazy game."

Ombre refrained from mentioning that they were always involved in a crazy game of some shape form or description, be it villains, Kaiba or Dumbledore, they all counted as games.

"Alright," Serenity nodded, "I'll explain about Fae and you can explain what you meant by 'our deck'."

"Deal." Yugi agreed, "Now to get out of here…"

Serenity squeaked as the sun blinded her as it came down, lighting up the entire valley.

"I thought you said we had an hour!" Yugi yelped.

"In theory, yes, but you weren't conscious when we had the 'the sun is rising in the wrong direction' conversation." Ombre scowled, "Shouldn't we find that 'unbreakable' stone?"

They looked around. "There." Solomon pointed towards a huge stone obelisk.

They walked up to the stone, examining it.

"What did the riddle say?"

"To achieve the impossible fight with a power that's greater then physical might." Yugi repeated, "Since the rock's unbreakable and we're trying to achieve the impossible, I'm guessing we have to break it."

"What power is greater then physical might?" Ombre wondered aloud.

"Friendship?" Serenity offered.

Yugi cracked up.

"What?"

"That was a very Tea response." Yugi giggled.

"So what do you suggest?"

"Fire capsule." Yugi called, spotting something on the cliff face, sending out his Sunset Magician.

"Yugi, wait…" Serenity yelped.

"Duel Armour activate."

Yugi fused with Sunset Magician, and pulled Serenity and his Grandfather out of the way. Ombre, who had spotted the attack coming, and hadn't been dazzled by the light show of the fusion, dove in the opposite direction, rolling behind a rock.

"A Prisman?" Yugi frowned, it certainly counted as a creature of light, but was far weaker then any monster they had fought so far.

It glowed brightly and Yugi flew upwards, distracting the Prisman and narrowly avoiding the bright beam.

"Prisman's made of glass." Solomon was saying to Serenity, "So it can focus the sun's rays to use as an energy beam, and up here, the blast is much more powerful."

"Yugi needs help." Serenity murmured as Yugi acted as live bait to distract the monster, getting a couple of blasts in, blasts that by all rights should have destroyed the creature, but did little more then blast it backwards. "Ancient Fairy…" She loaded her capsule and stood up, attracting the Prisman's attention.

Which, of course, drew Ombre into the fight, sending out her Criosphinx, as Serenity called Ancient Fairy Dragon out.

Yugi stood between their monsters and the glass monster.

"Guys, focus on the stone, I'll handle the Prisman." Yugi said, glancing at the two girls.

"But Yugi…"

The Prisman glowed again, preparing to fire.

"Guys!" Yugi dodged and Fae narrowly escaped, but Criosphinx's shoulder was burnt as it escaped the beam, which struck the rock squarely in the middle. Ombre cried out in pain, but it was Yugi who noticed the hole in the middle of the rock. This wasn't going to be easy…

* * *

Joey looked up as Yami swore and shot out of the cave. "Yami?" He asked, following.

"Yugi."

"It's started already?" Joey growled, looking around and trying to tell the time by the sun, as Ombre and Yami could, failing miserably, "I thought we had time."

Yami didn't stop to reply, already heading towards the crevice. Joey growled and followed, catching up easily, and sending out his Baby Dragon to assist them in getting down just in time to see Ancient Fairy Dragon roar and fly upwards, one of her wings smoking.

"Serenity…"

Ancient Fairy Dragon shot an incredibly bright whitish blue beam of light down into the crevice as Baby Dragon took off, blinding the pair of boys, for a moment.

Something screamed, though the cry certainly wasn't human, and as Yami and Joey finally got their sight back, they dove forward in time to see a glowing pile of rocks and the last remnants of an exploding Duel Monster.

"Guys!" Joey shouted down, distracting Yugi for a half second longer then he could afford as something in black armour appeared in the deepening shadows, as the sun passed overhead, and leapt at Yugi.

Yami hadn't stopped to shout though, and his Dark Magician blasted the warrior back.

"Take him down!" Yami snarled.

The Dark Magician went to attack.

The attack struck Yugi's wings instead, sending the young man sprawling.

"Yugi!"

"Ow." Yugi was being helped to his feet by Serenity as the Dark Magician backed off and Yami and Joey reached the bottom of the gorge. The young man, still in his Sunset Magician armour, turned to look at and bow to the monster, who returned the bow.

The glowing rocks became a glowing treasure chest, a purple one with a silver eye of Horus on and opened without being touched.

"Only the righteous and peaceful shall pass, remember?" Yugi asked Yami, wincing and dismissing his armour.

"Sorry." They recalled their monsters as Yugi took a moment to sit down before handing out what had been in the treasure chest. Sets of angelic wings that strapped to their arms. Serenity giggled as she flapped her arms and lifted about a foot from the ground.

"Weee." She giggled as she flew upward for a moment and then dove sharply, spinning in mid air and landing next to the guys with a grin, holding the necklace Yugi had asked her to guard. "Looks like we passed; look." She held it up for the others to look. Another segment had turned red.

"Well played my young friends." They wheeled around, Yami and Joey instinctively getting at the front of the group.

Yugi pushed his way to the front, "You're the one who helped me in the last task."

"I am." The man stood in front of them nodded, his golden helmet decorated ornately. He was clothed in the manner of a warrior of Ancient Rome.

"Who are you?" Yami demanded.

"My name is of no consequence Pharaoh; I mean no harm to you or your heir. I oversee these trials, congratulations on passing level two."

"What can you tell us about the remaining three tasks?" Ombre asked, giving him an odd look.

"Only that the most difficult tasks lie ahead. You would do well to stick together."

"What should happen, if we fail?" Yugi asked, though Yami heard the hesitation in his voice on the word 'we', and it wasn't hard to work out that Yugi had wanted to say 'I'.

"You will be trapped here, until the next warrior comes."

"And if we pass?" Yami asked, sending reassurance down the link.

"Your heir will have proven himself truly worthy to be king and the power that he deserves will be his." The man vanished into the shadows that had built up further down the canyon, fading completely.

"But I don't want any more power." Yugi said with a confused sigh.

"Someone has to win it, I suppose." Joey shrugged as Ombre scowled and looked the way the man had gone, she had memories of him in the Orb, she was sure of it.

A glowing door formed up above them, in the sky.

"Time to move on?" Solomon hazarded.

"Yugi?" Serenity asked, noting how tired he seemed.

"I'm ok." Yugi nodded, smiling, "Thanks anyway."

"We'll go through the doorway," Solomon said, "And then it might be a good idea for Yugi to get a boost from Mystical Elf, if that's okay with you Serenity." Solomon ignored the exasperated look from his Grandson and looked at the apprentice healer, who nodded.

"Yeah, we wouldn't want the door to close on us." Joey half joked.

"Shall we then?" Yugi asked, flapping his arms and taking off.

"Wait for us." Joey grinned and shot up into the air, chasing his friend.

Yami was the last to take off, scowling into the darkness and wondered why the man appeared to want Yugi to gain the power invested in the game.

"Oi, Yams." Joey called, "You coming or what?"

Yami took off, determined to get Joey for the nickname, and they laughed and chased each other through the portal and into the next task.


	7. Blazing Battle

It was hot.

Very hot.

"I wouldn't like to fall down there." Joey commented, looking over the edge of the cliff to the pool of lava below, as Serenity's Mystical Elf healed Yugi of the injuries he'd sustained when he'd deliberately moved in the way of the attack from Yami's Dark Magician in order to pass the second trial.

"Please don't." Yami scowled at him, still irritated about the fact Joey kept calling him Yams, and feeling guilty about his monster's attack. If he'd remembered the last part of the riddle, it wouldn't have happened, but his anger at the Dark attribute Duel Monster's attempted attack on Yugi had pushed rational thought out of his mind.

"Wasn't planning on it." Joey replied with a grin, aware of Yami's mood and determined to keep it focused on him, if only to keep the worried, stressed out, Pharaoh from snapping at anyone other then him.

Tempers were likely to fray in this heat as it was, but there wasn't much he could do about that part, since the doorway they had flown through had led to an active volcano, and the wings they had won during the last task had disappeared the moment they had landed to take a short breather.

"The only thing these areas have in common is the heat." Yugi added to the conversation, even more aware of Yami's mood then Joey, but getting no response when prodding the mind link, as Mystical Elf vanished back into her capsule, which had a silver tint to it. Serenity didn't mention it to the others, deciding that her elf just needed a rest, "Think about it, a desert, an island in the sky with no practically no cover and now a volcano."

"Anyone would think that the guy who created this game didn't know what ice was." Joey snorted.

"It's possible that whoever created the game was unable to think of way to get any ice into the tasks so far." Ombre retorted, as Yugi stood up, thanked Serenity profusely and looked around properly. "Or thought it would take up too much power to keep somewhere cold enough for ice."

"Which is a shame; because I'd welcome an icy level next…" Joey said, licking his dry lips, throat already parched. If the next level was hotter again, he was going to get Kaiba to build a time machine, go back in time and kick the butt of whoever had invented this stupid game.

"We'll just have to wait and see." Yugi nodded, "We have to find the parchment for this task first."

"They haven't been too hard to find so far." Serenity offered, "So it might not be too far away." She frowned at her brother, who was looking towards the volcano with an odd expression. "Joey?"

"Nothing." Joey frowned, sure he'd heard something, no, not something, someone. Someone he knew rather well in fact, he'd recognise that roar anywhere and he didn't know how the others had missed it. "Are we going or what?"

They gathered up their bags, "Let's go." Yugi nodded, "The sooner we find the clue, the sooner we can actually have our vacation."

They followed the easiest route through the mountain, a steep, rugged mountain path that weaved its way around the cliffs and was prone to crumbling, but was still easier then scrambling over the sharp rocks which gave no warning as to whether there was rock or a fifty foot drop on the other side.

It was either a trap or part of the level's design, in order to assist the players, Yugi wasn't sure which, and it was making him nervous, as he led the group through around the rocks, and further up the mountain, towards the volcano.

The ground shook, and Yugi wheeled around at Serenity's cry.

The ground had given way beneath those trailing behind, sending them tumbling down to the path below.

Joey, who had fallen, along with Serenity and Ombre, helped the girls to their feet and then looked up at Yugi, Yami and Solomon, shaking his head as Yugi reached for his Sunlight Magician capsule.

"Are you alright?" Yami shouted down.

"We're fine. Don't worry about us." Joey shouted up, "Don't exhaust your monsters; we'll meet up with you."

Yugi hesitated.

"Who knows, we might find the scroll." Joey grinned, "Bet you five common monster cards that we find it before you do."

Yugi wasn't sure that splitting up was the wisest course, but Solomon put his hand on his shoulder, "We'll be searching forever at this rate." He advised.

"If you find it, don't open the scroll until we meet up." Yugi called down, "Has anyone got a working clock?"

Ombre and Joey shook their heads but Serenity called up, "I have a watch but it can't be the right time."

"It's working though, right?"

"Uh huh."

"If you can't find a way up, we'll meet back here in two hours." The heir nodded, "Try not to get lost."

"See ya later, Yuge." Joey waved, ushering the girls off.

Yugi didn't move until the group below had turned a corner and vanished from sight, then he sighed and turned to the others, "We need to mark this point."

Solomon opened his backpack and pulled out a couple of pots. "We have nothing to cook…"

"It'll do." Yugi nodded, putting them in an obvious, but safe place. "Let's go."

* * *

Rebecca was on the phone, talking loudly in the study, when Professor Arthur Hawkins got home from the guest lecture he had been speaking at.

"I'll ask when he gets home. No, I've found no mention in my Grandfather's history books of a pyramid in India, there's mention of Alexander the Great, who was a Pharaoh, passing through, but…" She hesitated as Arthur slipped into the room, "Grandpa, do you know if there's any pyramids in India?"

"Not as far as I'm aware, but India isn't my specialty."

Rebecca passed on the message and nodded, obviously agreeing with whatever whoever she was speaking to was saying. "Are you sure you don't need me to come over? I know I know… Alright, you'd better phone me the moment you know anything, got it? Alright… bye."

"Something wrong?" Arthur asked as Rebecca put the phone down and slumped onto the chair, text books strewn across the desk, cupboards and floor.

"Yugi and the others are missing, Mr Muto too."

"What?" Arthur stared at his granddaughter.

"They were going to India via portkey and something went wrong, Seto sent out a search party and they discovered a pyramid that has anti Muggle wards up…"

"Okay, how did Solomon get involved in this? I thought he was off on a dig in an advisory role." Arthur frowned, remembering Solomon mentioning that he wouldn't be available to contact for about a month.

"He was." Rebecca nodded. "In India."

"Oh."

"Yeah." She glanced at the clock, five pm, so it was probably about nine am in Japan, so it had been almost twenty four hours since the group had vanished…

"What's Kaiba doing about it?"

"He and Mokuba are heading to India, to see what they can do. Seto believes that whoever has kidnapped the gang, may be holding Solomon prisoner in order to manipulate Yugi."

Arthur frowned, having been allowed to know the recent history of the Millennium Items. "There's a gentleman at the college I was speaking at today, who specialises in Grecian History. He may have more information on the travels of Alexander the Great then I do. I can give him a call."

"Really?" Rebecca's face lit up and she glomped her grandfather who staggered backwards under the weight of an almost fifteen year old girl.

"Let me find that phone number…"

* * *

"DUCK!"

Joey pulled Serenity to the ground and Ombre dove to one side as something huge and black dove at them, roaring as it missing them by inches.

"Tobias!" Joey stormed as he got to his feet, glowering at the dragon that landed in the middle of the path they had been following. "What do you think you're doing?"

The Red Eyes Black Dragon didn't reply, merely roared at him and launched an Inferno Fire Blast which passed straight over their heads and exploded on the rocks behind Ombre.

"Capsule…"

"Ombre, no!" Joey snapped at her, glancing over his shoulder, before, carefully approaching the dragon, who took a step backwards and growled. "Tobias?"

"Joey, I don't think…"

The dragon blinked at Joey, huge red eyes staring at Joey.

"What's wrong, pal?" Joey asked, standing just a foot from the dragon that a moment ago had been about to attack again.

The Dragon lowered its head to Joey's level, snarling and snapping when Serenity tried to approach.

"Easy, that's my sister." Joey placed his hand on the dragon's head.

In that moment emotions and feelings rushed through him, feelings and emotions from the dragon he was now touching, including a severe pain in his right shoulder.

In a blinding flash of ruby and with a pained cry, both Duellist and Dragon were gone.

"Joey!" Serenity rushed forward, standing in the spot that her brother had vanished from and looking around desperately. "JOEY!" She sent out her Ancient Fairy Dragon and mounted, offering Ombre a hand up, allowing the Princess to settle before directing her dragon to take off.

There was no sign of the dragon among the dark, ash filled clouds, and Serenity was in tears from worry and stress by the time that Ombre shouted that she saw the others, and Serenity directed her dragon to land just down the path from them.

"Guys, what's wrong?" Yugi darted forward.

"Joey's vanished." Ombre replied, noting that Solomon was holding the scroll for the level.

Yugi stopped dead, staring at her as Serenity wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, "What?"

"Joey. Gone."

"How? When? Where?"

"We were attacked by a Red Eyes and Joey managed to approach it without getting eaten." Serenity replied, eyes cast downwards towards the rocks at her dragon's feet. "And they both vanished."

"Ra damn it." Yami looked around, trying to work out what to do, then remembering that he was supposed to be deferring to Yugi for the duration of the game and looking at his hikari, who seemed lost.

"We have to find him." Yugi finally spoke up, "Can you show us where he vanished to?"

"Uh huh." Serenity nodded.

"Yugi…" Ombre murmured, pointing upwards.

Yugi looked up in time to see something that looked like a black dragon disappearing into the clouds.

"Fae!" Serenity yelped. The dragon took off, but was back again in just a few minutes, with a despondent Serenity. "Lost it again, it was heading for the volcano."

"Then that's where we're going." Yugi nodded, thinking quickly, "Serenity, can Ancient Fairy Dragon carry two people up there?"

"I think so." She replied hesitantly, looking at her dragon, who seemed unfazed by carrying two.

"Ombre, can Criosphinx carry you and someone else?"

"I'd assume so." Ombre nodded.

"Alright," Yugi looked at them, "Grandpa, you go with Ombre, Yami you go with Serenity."

"What about you?" Solomon asked.

"Capsule launch." Yugi's reply was to send out his Sunset Magician and fuse with it.

"You shouldn't…"

Yugi took to the air.

"…Be using the armour more then necessary."

The others weren't far behind.

* * *

"Hermione Granger, what are you still doing up at this time of the morning?"

Hermione stretched and looked up from the book she was reading, and glanced at the alarm clock. The glowing red digital display was dead. The batteries had probably run out. "What time is it?" She asked, turning to face her mother, who looked less then amused.

"Half past two." Her mother came over, taking the books that were still on the bed and shifting the pile that had built up on the floor, "And long past the time you should have been asleep young lady."

"But Mum…" Hermione winced at how whiney she sounded; maybe it was time to sleep.

"Just what are you looking for in all these books?" Gillian looked around at the books her daughter was reading. Not her usual fair of Egyptology texts and obscure magical rituals, no this was Indian history, magical areas within the country, magical forms of transport… that explained the sudden need to travel to Diagon Alley Sunday afternoon. "Has something happened?"

"Some of my friends are missing." Hermione replied, "On holiday in India."

That explained the new texts, "What happened?" She asked quietly, putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder. Hermione had been understandably upset since the death of her best friend, and her mother sincerely hoped that Hermione wasn't about to go through even more sorrow.

"Someone interrupted the transport device they were using and they got dumped in the middle of nowhere." Hermione curled up slightly, "Seto thinks that they're alright, because apparently there was no sign of a struggle but…"

"An accident maybe?"

"Portkeys don't break for no reason." Hermione shook her head.

"Who would want to attack secondary school children?" Gillian frowned, not at her daughter, but more at the thought in general, "Even magical children are just children…"

"They're not… normal…" Hermione changed what she was going to say, refusing to lie to her parents.

"So what, they're rich? Or powerful? Is that why you think they were attacked?"

"Powerful." Hermione nodded, "And they have these really old, really valuable items that they look after that makes them a target."

"A kidnapping?"

"Maybe."

"I won't tell you to sleep, but I will remind you that you're here in England and their in India, there isn't much you can do for them, by not sleeping when you have to be up early tomorrow."

"I know, I know." Hermione scowled at the books her Mother had moved. "They're useless anyway, books always are! There's nothing useful in them again!"

"I thought the wisdom of the ages was in a text book somewhere." Gillian teased her daughter gently, reminding Hermione of the time, back when the girl had been six or seven, that Hermione had borrowed a rather complicated text book on physics from the library and run up stairs with it, giggling that she'd soon be learning everything there was to know in the universe.

That book had gone back to the library late and only half read.

"Not all the wisdom." Hermione sighed, closing her eyes, "Not wisdom that can help me now."

"Maybe you should write your own books then." Gillian could have groaned as Hermione's eyes opened, looking incredibly interested in the idea. "But not now. Go to sleep first."

"But mum…"

"In the morning I'll help you get whatever you need, but I won't pay for notebooks and pens and research books and equipment if you won't sleep now."

Hermione closed her eyes determinedly.

Gillian waited until her daughter was actually asleep and then left the room, shutting the door quietly behind her, returning to the bedroom she shared with her husband, Adrian, who rolled over as she led down carefully, trying not to disturb him, to look at her with half closed eyes, "Everything alright?"

"I don't know, maybe." She sighed, closing her eyes, "You ever think that maybe we made a mistake, letting Hermione go that school?"

"Where else would she get training?" She could hear the frown in her husband's tone but didn't open her eyes.

"I don't know, private tutor or something?"

"We wouldn't have known where to go to get one."

There was silence for a minute, then "Adrian? Love?"

"Yes dear?" The poor dentist murmured, mostly asleep again.

"How would you feel about a holiday to Japan?"

* * *

They'd almost been at the top of the volcano when they'd been attacked, and Solomon had dropped the scroll in his attempt to stay on the sphinx that was carrying him.

Luckily Yugi had caught it.

Unluckily Yugi had only caught it by the corner, so it unravelled, revealing the task for all to see and allowing him to read a few of the words.

"Damn." Yugi growled, "Yami!" He shot past, passing the parchment to his dark half as Ancient Fairy Dragon and Criosphinx landed on the shelf just down from the volcano's mouth and Yugi stayed up in the air, to try and stop any more attacks getting through.

"What does it say?" Ombre asked, scowling.

"To gain the prize that you desire, locate the peak that spits fire. The blade of chaos thou must release, to bring about a lasting piece."

"Well, we're on the peak that spit's fire." Solomon frowned, indicating the rocks that the volcano was occasionally spitting out.

"So where's this blade of chaos?" Ombre scowled.

"There." Yugi darted forward, towards a sword that was embedded in the rocks.

"Yugi wait!" Yami yelped.

A ball of fire came out of nowhere, narrowly missing Yugi and pushing him back, away from the sword.

That wasn't the worst of it.

They watched in horror as someone descended from the ash filled clouds, in Duel Monster armour, armour that had resulted, quite obviously, from a fusion of human and Red Eyes Black Dragon…

"Joey?" Yugi stared as his friend hovered just about the peak he'd been trying to reach. "What…?"

Joey's chuckle made Yugi gulp. His friend's voice was wrong, there was an echo behind it that made Yugi float back around a foot as the fact that Joey's eyes were red sank in. Not again… please not again… "Don't play dumb, Yugi." 'Joey' sniggered, "I've merged with my monster, just like you have." He smirked, "And now that I've gotten a little power boost, I'll be completing the rest of these tasks without having to rely on a weak, pathetic loser like you."

Yami growled, reaching for his capsules, only to be stopped by Solomon, who shook his head, "Easy now. That's not Joey."

"I know but…" Yami glanced at his hikari. Yugi would NOT want to do this, would not want to fight his best friend, not again…

" _Yami…"_

"Sure." 'Joey' snorted, as Yugi called to Yami, so used to the outward signs that he knew the moment Yugi had done so, "Go running to your precious dark side whenever you don't want to do something."

"I…" Yugi landed, "I don't want to do this, Joey. Not again." Yugi shook his head, refusing to attack, staring up at his best friend, whose armour that looked like his Red Eyes Transmigration armour with bigger and stronger wings, and had a polearm weapon with an axe like head, Yugi knew the spell card but couldn't think of the name, only knowing that it would boost Joey's firepower. "Please, fight it…"

"What kind of a king begs?" Joey laughed, throwing a second fireball. This one exploded at Yugi's feet, blasting him backward. The heir landed on his back at his dark half's feet. Yugi groaned as he forced himself to sit up. "Get up and fight me like a man!"

"Yugi…" Yami helped him to his feet, with an odd expression.

"No." Yugi knew what Yami was asking.

"I nearly lost you last time."

"Yami…" Yugi took to the skies to both save his friend and prevent his dark half from attacking. "I'm not going to fight you, Joey."

Joey, under the control of whatever had given him the armour, had no intention of letting Yugi refuse, swiping at the hikari, who floated backwards, to avoid the attack.

Joey pressed his advantage, lunging at Yugi with a punch aimed at the hikari's face, leaving his friend with no other options then to defend himself, blocking the attack and countering with a kick that knocked Joey backwards about two foot.

Joey countered by chucking a fireball at Yugi, who knocked it aside with a blast of magic, before attempting to dart around Joey to get to the sword.

Joey was having none of it, swiftly moving between Yugi and the sword, lashing out with his halberd, the axe part of which resembled his wing, forcing Yugi to back off, as he had no weapon of his own.

Yami darted forwards as Yugi and Joey fought, to try to get the sword while Joey was distracted, without calling any monsters, only to regret it a moment later, when an Inferno Fire Blast attack headed in his direction and before he knew what was going on, Yugi had intercepted, using his own body as the shield.

"Dark Magician!" Yami summoned his monster and turned on Joey, to protect his hikari, "I won't let you hurt him, Joey."

"N… No." Yugi got up slowly, pain easy to sense, "My fight." Yugi took off again; giving Yami a look that clearly stated 'no.' He faced his friend, unsure how to attack, and suddenly horribly aware that the sword they were meant to be retrieving was sinking into the rock.

Joey attacked again, forcing Yugi into a second round of combat as Ombre darted around the mountain, coming at the sword from a different angle, getting pretty close before Joey nearly knocked her into the lava.

"Get away!" Yugi gasped, saving Ombre and taking another blow for his troubles.

"That's it. I don't care, I'm not going to stand here while Yugi gets hurt trying to protect us." Yami snarled, "You focus on the sword, I'm helping Yugi." Dark Magician took to the sky, blocking a blow from Joey that would have sent Yugi flying, as Ombre and Solomon nodded and Serenity hesitated.

"Yami, I told you this was my fight!" Yugi protested as the Dark Magician got Joey to back off long enough for Solomon and Ombre to reach the sword and attempt to pull it out.

Yami would have replied, but Joey had taken that moment to blast the Dark Magician, causing the monster in question to crash into the ground and Yami to cry out in pain. Then Yugi had no time to do anything other then get between the others and Joey as the dragon possessed young man as he attacked again.

Ombre and Solomon dove out of the way as Yugi was pushed back, into the sword's hilt, and with a swing of the halberd, sent crashing into a pile of rocks, swiftly followed by an Inferno Fire Blast attack that struck home, leaving Yugi practically unconscious as Joey swooped in.

Yugi's armour was gone, Sunset Magician back in its capsule, which was now silver.

"JOEY STOP!" Serenity put herself between Yugi and her brother.

Somehow, Joey pulled up in time, hovering a few foot in the air, looking rather pleased with himself as the sword embedded in the rock disappeared completely.

"Yugi!" Yami darted towards his hikari, his Dark Magician picking himself up slowly.

Ombre stared at the point where the sword had been… "It's over… we lost…"

"N… No…" Yugi whimpered, as Yami watched him do what should have been impossible without healing and get to his feet, "Not over."

"Yugi…"

The heir looked up at his possessed friend, who looked vaguely surprised that Yugi could get up.

Dark Magician reached their side.

"Yami, may I?" Yugi nodded towards the monster, who watched them without reacting.

"Yugi, you…"

"I promise, it's not over." Yugi said, as firmly as he could.

Yami hesitated.

"Dark Magician." Yugi turned to the Duel Monster, "Please, aid me."

The two fused.

Yugi took to the air, though he was nowhere near as agile as before. "I'm going to knock you back to your senses Joey."

"You should have stayed down." 'Joey' replied, and would have attacked again, but something was stopping him.

" _You're not going to hurt my friends using my body!"_ It looked like something was holding him back, and for a moment, Yugi thought he caught a glimpse of a spirit like Joey.

" _NOW!"_ Yugi was sure that was Joey's voice.

"DARK MAGIC ATTACK!" Yugi's bellow was heard even over the sound of the bubbling volcano, as he pointed the staff at Joey and focused the magic of the monster he's merged with.

The powerful blast of magic struck home, knocking Joey out of the skies. This time it was Joey's turn to hit the ground hard, and as he did so, the armour shattered, leaving an unconscious Red Eyes and an injured Joey behind.

"Yugi, finish it!" Ombre growled.

"No!" Joey yelped, staggering to his feet, moving over to the dragon, climbing up onto it's back and pulling on the thing which had been causing the shoulder pain.

"Another sword!" Solomon got it.

"Yugi, destroy it!" Joey yelled, throwing the sword up into the air.

With a second Dark Magic Attack, the sword was gone.

A third segment on the pendant turned red.

Red Eyes waited until Joey had climbed down, before vanishing in a burst of golden light and entering Joey's capsule launcher, which ejected a shining golden capsule.

"Good to have you at my side, pal." Joey murmured to it as the door to the next world opened, then he pitched forward and was caught by Yugi, who looked like he wouldn't be upright much longer himself.

"Door." Yugi panted, shaking his head, trying to shift the darkness at the edge of his vision.

"Let me." Ombre pulled her Criosphinx back out, as Serenity checked and confirmed Joey's pulse. Yugi managed to get Joey on the monster's back, before his armour vanished and he had to be held upright by Yami. Solomon grabbed both Sunset Magician's sliver capsule and Dark Magician's golden one.

"Let's… move on." Yugi advised.

"You both need…"

"Let's go… through first… Heal us… once we're through."

They quickly headed through the door, finding them selves in a fruit filled forest. They didn't look around too much as they got Joey down from the sphinx's back.

"Is he…" Yugi asked, gasping for breath and leaning heavily on his dark half, "Is he…?"

"He's ok, or he will be, once he's had a chance to rest." Serenity replied, wanting to reassure the hikari, while knowing she needed to make a full check without worrying him some how.

The need to be cautious was removed when, at Serenity's reassurance, Yugi finally gave into the darkness that had been trying to claim him since his Sunset Magician armour had shattered.


	8. Maze

Seven hours, twenty seven minutes and forty two seconds after they had arrived in this forest that appeared to be heavily populated by fruit and little else, and Yugi had yet to wake up.

Not that Yami was timing at all.

Joey had woken around an hour ago, and had spent the greater majority of his time stuffing his face full of fruit, rather juicy, soft, delicious… Yami was waiting for Yugi, but the others had all eaten for what felt like the first time days and now felt refreshed and restored.

Joey was currently staying away from the group, pacing the outside of the group's little campsite, keeping an eye out for wild monsters, not that there appeared to be any, Yami could guess why, he was probably feeling guilty.

Yugi would want to speak to his friend upon waking. Yami would have to make sure that Joey didn't wander off again.

"You should eat something." Solomon brought over a few of the plum like fruits for Yami to try.

"I'm not hungry."

"Yami…"

"I'll eat once Yugi wakes up."

"He won't be happy if he wakes up and finds you've turned away food because he's injured."

A phrase Kari had once used about pots and kettles sprang to mind, but Yami took one of the fruits, and took a bite, enjoying the juice, suddenly feeling stronger then he had since he'd given Yugi the boost after the wolves. "What?"

"I'm guessing that they were put in the game to give those playing a fair chance and the next couple of trials. Anyone who reached this point was probably as tired and injured as we are." Solomon watched Joey walk past, limping slightly from the bruising his leg had sustained, "Doesn't heal injuries though, just restores energy and eases pain."

"Better then nothing." Yami nodded, finishing one fruit and taking another. He was on his third when it exploded in a cloud of white smoke, to be replaced by a rather less tasty scroll. Yami glared, willing the scroll to burst into flames. "Guys!" He held it up, making the others look.

"Now we wait for Yugi." Ombre nodded as Serenity came to Yugi's side again, checking his pulse again, just as she had every half hour for the last few hours.

"Steady… even…" She bit her lip, berating herself for forgetting to stock up her medkit before she'd left. She was sure he was just sleeping at this point, but she wondered if she should get her Ancient Fairy Dragon to use her power again.

Her eyes flickered to her brother, who had steadfastly refused her help, guilt preventing him from seeking relief. He was being kept an eye on by the aforementioned dragon, at Serenity's request.

Yami closed his eyes, taking his hikari's hand in his. Ombre, realising what Yami was up to quickly gathered more fruit, knowing that both Pharaoh and Heir would need some if what the Pharaoh was trying worked.

Yami's face had paled considerably and his breathing was heavy when he finally opened his eyes and Yugi finally started stirring.

"Eat. Now." Ombre snarled, shoving an apple under Yami's nose, as he curled in on himself, still panting heavily, more then exhausted, having given Yugi over three quarters of the energy the fruit had returned to him.

"Y…Yami?" Yugi asked as he opened his eyes, confused at his dark half's exhaustion and at his own energy boost.

"Hey…hikari…" Yami smiled slightly, straightening to hide how tired he was and knowing it was a failing effort when Yugi gave him a worried look.

"I told you not to…" Yugi got it.

"It's okay for him to do it." Ombre interrupted Yugi, as she helped him sit up and gave him a plum as Yami tucked into his apple, "The fruit around here restores energy and take the edge off of pain, your Grandfather thinks they're to balance out the playing field for the last tasks."

"Maybe." Yugi relaxed slightly when he sensed Yami's magic levels rise again, and tucked into the pile of fruit. The pair of them demolished it rather quickly, causing Ombre to make a comment around the lines of 'and I thought Joey was bad when he's hungry.'

While the comment made the others smile, it did little more then cause Yugi to look around, to try and see his friend, who was currently skulking in the trees, avoiding them.

"Joey? You eaten?" Yugi asked concern obvious.

Joey nodded, but didn't come any closer.

Yugi's shoulders sank, knowing what this was about. "Joey…"

"What does the scroll say?" Joey responded, not wanting to talk about it, and trying to distract Yugi.

Yugi frowned but looked at his Grandfather, who unfolded the scroll, "Choose the apple that gives you a raise, then offer it up in the Sacred Maze." Solomon read, causing the gang to look around at the fruit trees around them, groaning when they saw there were ten or fifteen apple trees in sight of here alone.

"I hope we haven't eaten it." Yugi murmured, looking at the pile of apple cores.

"I wouldn't have thought so." Solomon said, reassuringly as Yami got up and helped Yugi to his feet. "Surely it would look unusual enough to be noticeable."

"We were rather hungry…" Yugi hesitated.

"What does it mean, give you a raise?" Serenity asked. "Raise our energy? Our magic…?"

"It's rather unhelpfully vague."

"Mystical but not particularly helpful…." Yami snorted, something hitting him.

"What?" Yugi asked, poking his dark side.

"Nothing, nothing." Yami smirked, "Just a thought."

"Shall we look for this apple then?" Yugi asked, hesitating as he took a step forward, trying to hide a wince. Luckily Serenity, who had been stashing a few fruits in her bag, missed it.

"Apple, maze, next task, home." Ombre nods, closing her bag, having joined Serenity in stashing fruit.

"Let's go."

* * *

"You're late." Mai scowled, having waited at the gates to the theme park where the Stroder Corp Tournament was being held, for the trio now rushing through the gates. "You were supposed to be here half an hour ago, registration closes in ten minutes."

"Sorry." Sirius scowled as Mai rushed them towards the registrars, "We would have been here on time, but someone refused to get off the phone and get ready." Sirius indicated Harry who was pulling out his Duellist card and invite from his pocket, while trying not to be amused that his Godfather, who normally fawned over the blonde haired, purple eyed Duellist, was so irritated at Harry that he was actually behaving for a change.

"Girl trouble?" Mai teased Harry with a grin, having noticed Sirius's change in attitude herself.

"I wish." Harry scowled as he registered quickly, "I was on the phone to Mokuba."

"Mokuba Kaiba?" Mai looked confused, "Why?"

Harry sighed. "There's trouble."

"Again?" Mai frowned, as they headed for the centre of the park, where the opening ceremony was due to kick off in half an hour. "What is it this time? Evil cults? Crazed wizards…?"

"Pyramids in the wrong place."

"That's… new…"

"Not completely." Harry disagreed, "At least this one is a real pyramid, not like the Pyramid of Light a few years ago…"

"I heard about that in the news." Mai frowned, "No one knew where it came from or what it was for, it was assumed that it was a Kaiba Corp experiment gone wrong."

"You could say that." Harry snorted, a small smile crossing his face for a moment, "Seto got a hold of a card that could stop the God cards and decided to test it out."

"What?" Mai stared, her eyes wide.

"He got a hold of a card that could stop the God cards and decided to test it out." Harry rolled his eyes, "And it worked."

"So why hasn't he used it since?" Mai asked.

"It wasn't a real card, it was created by Anubis, Lord of the Dead, in an attempt to get his revenge on Yami, and it created a Shadow Game where every time someone lost life points, it drained some of their life energy, in order to give Anubis the power he needed to come back to life." Harry replied, "Yugi and Yami nearly died and Seto got possessed."

"Oh…" Mai nodded, understanding why Kaiba would be hesitant to play that card again.

"Yeah." Harry agreed.

"So this Pyramid is better then that one?" Mai asked, stopping far enough away from the group that was gathered to talk, but close enough to be able to hear when the announcements started.

"We hope so." Harry nodded, "But we'll know more when Seto and Mokuba finally join up with the search party. If they're not back by tomorrow night, we're heading over to try to help."

"What is it with those guys and getting into trouble? I'll come with you, if they're not back." Mai sighed, watching the Duellists who were gathered, interacting. "You do realise that this is going to be your test right?"

"What do you mean?" Harry frowned.

"Up until this point you've been playing small time opponents." Mai explained, "Oh don't get me wrong, that French tournament we met at had some decent duellists, and it was enough to get you noticed, but there's a lot of big names here, and it's going to be interesting."

Harry looked around, wondering why Mai was so concerned. "What do you…" Harry paused, faces matching up to second hand memories, "Weevil, Mako, Espa…" He pointed to each in turn for his Godfather's and cousin's sakes, "None of our lot, except us of course, but they were supposed to be on holiday…"

"You know them?"

"Heard of them." Harry shook his head, "Yugi told me a lot about his opponents."

"What did he say about me?" Mai asked, curious.

"That you're a fantastic Duellist, an honourable one too and that he was looking forward to Duelling against you."

Mai preened slightly, making Harry smile.

"Do you two want anything to eat or drink?" Sirius asked, noting that Dudley seemed bored and remembering that Harry had made him promise to let him wander around on his own for a while.

"I'm not hungry." Mai shook her head, "But I could use a coffee."

"Harry?"

"Coke and a sandwich or something, since you wouldn't let me get breakfast."

"You were the one made us…" Sirius growled, gave up and stomped off, Dudley in tow.

"How long do you think it'll take them?"

"Considering that Dudley doesn't speak German and Sirius will get lost if he gets distracted by a pretty girl…"

* * *

"I… what the…?" Yugi stared at the edge of world barrier that he had literally just walked through.

"You ok, Yuge?" Joey asked, having been one of the pair that had dragged Yugi back through the barrier, rescuing him from the void.

"I'm ok." Yugi gave his friend a reassuring smile, relieved to have Joey finally say something to him.

"Well if you had any doubt that we were in the Shadow Realm…" Ombre scowled at the barrier which separated the world they were in from the rest of the Shadow Realm.

"I thought maybe…" Serenity hesitated, "We're really fully immersed in the Shadow Realm?"

"It must have taken an incredible amount of power to create a whole world like this." Yami commented, now sticking closer then ever to his hikari, "It doesn't surprise me that the boundaries would be thin, if this game has been set up as long as we think it has. The rest of the Shadow Realm has probably been eroding the power protecting this world."

"It's dangerous." Solomon frowned at the barrier, "You can't tell that the world ends here, if we hadn't been here…"

"Do you think anyone else has fallen out of the game and into the Shadows?" Serenity asked, worried.

"Well, we're just going to have to make sure that we don't do the same." Yugi said, taking a deep breath and looking around. "Plus side, this means there's less area to search."

"I am **not** searching through an entire forest waving my arms in front of me to check whether or not there's a world barrier in front of me." Yami growled.

"Well, we could head back to that giant watermelon and see if there's anything else odd about it." Yugi suggested, "If we weren't looking for an apple, it would have screamed suspicious."

"It's the most suspicious looking thing here." Yami agreed.

"I'm wondering when a giant watermelon became suspicious." Solomon looked at his grandsons with a small, amused smile.

"When it was the only fruit in the whole forest that was bigger then usual, plus it was embedded in the ground." Yami pointed out.

"I bet it turns out to be a worm of some kind." Yugi giggled. "Or a larvae." There was silence for a while as they started heading back, "No one willing to take the bet?" Yugi challenged with a laugh.

"I'll take it." Solomon nodded when no one else would, "I'll bet you a day's shop duty that it's actually blocking the way to a hidden passageway."

"Deal." Yugi and his Grandfather shook on it. They headed back to the clearing, where the watermelon in question was, only to find that it was gone, and a tunnel that led downwards and to the south east, had replaced it.

"You owe me a day's shop duty." Solomon told his Grandson, as Joey helped his sister down into the hole.

"I know, I'll take an extra day when we get back." Yugi nodded, more concerned about what had taken or eaten the giant fruit, and taking point as they headed downwards, along a surprisingly well lit tunnel, which led to a huge room.

On the other side of the room, revealed to them only by the light from there, brightly glowing, glowing objects on the top of three rather tall pillars, at the top of a small flight of stairs, was a stone alter.

"So there's the alter we have to offer the apple on…" Yugi murmured.

"So those," Yami indicated the glowing objects, "Are probably the apples." Yami stepped forward but Yugi put his arm out to block his dark side.

"I don't think I owe you anything Grandpa." He said, indicating something moving at the bottom of the stairs.

Ombre would have asked why, except the melon that had been blocking the passageway, had crept around the corner, revealing itself to be a bug of some kind. What kind it was, was hard to work out since they couldn't tell what colour it was or see the markings properly other then its head looked like the melon.

"No, it appears not." Solomon agreed, "It appears we were both correct."

"Stay here." Yugi requested, going to launch his Sunset Magician capsule, only to find that it was still silver. "Oh…"

"He probably needs a rest." Solomon advised Yugi, who nodded worried.

"Let us handle this." Ombre sent out her Criosphinx, intending to send the sphinx to collect one of the fruit.

Unfortunately at that moment the ground started shaking.

"What did you do?" Serenity yelped as the square tiles started rising and falling, forming walls around them.

Yugi attempted to leap from the tile that was moving under his feet, to one a bit closer to his Grandfather or Yami, but was hit by a tile that was coming up out of the ground and he hit the floor, a pained squeak escaping as he held his ribs, which had been bruised enough as it was before he'd been hit by the rising stone.

Then they lost sight of both him and Joey as the pair was sent off in one direction, Yami and Serenity in another and Solomon and Ombre in a third, the walls closing behind them and a roof appearing above them, imprisoning them all within the maze.

"Serenity!" Joey pounded the wall, trying to break through as Yugi got up with a light whimper, leaning on the wall.

' _Yugi?'_

" _Yami?"_ Yugi and Yami breathed a sigh of relief as their mental calls reached each other at the same time.

' _You're…'_

" _Joey and I are fine."_ Yugi sent reassurance down the link, sensing Yami's concern. _"What about you?"_

' _I'm ok, Serenity is too.'_ Yami replied, _'I don't know where Ombre and Grandpa are.'_

" _I hope they're alright… I'll tell you if anything happens, try and find the exit, we'll meet you there."_

' _Be careful.'_

" _You too."_ Yugi turned to face Joey, "Joey, Serenity's ok, she's with Yami."

"You're sure?" Joey asked, wheeling around to glare at him.

"I can still hear Yami." Yugi nodded, "The room was big, but not that big. He told me she's alright, I told them to head for the exit."

"She'd better be alright otherwise I'm going to do something drastic…" Joey grumbled.

Yugi chuckled, offering Joey a small smile. "I'll help, if you like."

Joey went to make a comment, then closed his mouth, shook his head and slunk off around the corner.

"Joey!" Yugi yelped. He would have chased after him, but a moment later Joey came sheepishly back around the corner.

"Dead end." He explained.

Yugi stood between his friend and the only other route out. "We need to talk."

* * *

"Are you alright, Mr Muto?" Ombre asked as she recalled her sphinx, concerned for the elderly man who had taken her in when she'd had no where else to go.

"Did I mention I'm getting too old for this?" Solomon complained as he looked up at the roof, half joking, smiling as he caught the look on Ombre's face. "I'm ok, Ombre. Thank you for asking."

Ombre just shrugged.

"And how many times to I have to ask you to call me Grandpa?" He asked, as he considered their routes. They were at a crossroads. One route was obviously blocked, since he remembered the path being blocked off behind them, which left three routes they could try.

Ombre just smiled lightly, the smile not reaching her eyes as she turned to look down the left route. "Mr…" She paused, "Grandpa, this way."

"You know the route?" Solomon frowned as he followed her down the path she had chosen.

"No, I don't remember it." Ombre shook her head, turning left at the next junction, tapping the Orb that hung from the chain around her neck. "But someone who held this came through here and the Orb stores the memories of those who hold it."

"Then you've known what we're supposed to be doing the whole way through?"

"No… well yes, but I didn't want to say anything. These are Yugi's trials, I didn't want to influence him in any way."

"Even if we could have been stuck here?"

"I wouldn't have let that happen."

"Then why did you tell Yugi to destroy the dragon in the last task?"

"Destroying the dragon would have revealed the sword and we would have been able to destroy it."

"Let me guess, the person whose memories that you hold had no love for Red Eyes?"

"It wasn't Red Eyes," She offered the capsule that they'd come across to him. "It was a Pyro monster that the Orb bearer's closest advisor was friends with."

Solomon tapped the capsule, still unsure about Ombre's stand on the situation, having to move back rather quickly as a huge stone golem appeared, breaking through the left wall and the ceiling.

"Well, you'll come in handy." Solomon grinned, "Can you see the Alter from here?"

The Ancient Giant raised its arm, knocking down more of the wall and roof, pointing right.

"Clear us a path." Solomon ordered.

"Mr Muto…" Ombre protested as the golem proceeded to knock down all the walls in their way.

"I don't care how the last man you remember coming through here completed this task. My grandsons' are hurt and lost in this maze and I'm going to find them." Solomon warned her.

Ombre frowned but said nothing as they broke through wall after wall. They travelled in silence for a moment, then, "You're not going to say anything, are you?" She asked, hesitantly after they had broken through several walls.

"How much do you know that you're not telling them?"

"I know more then I should, but less then I used to." Ombre said cryptically, thinking of the amount of memories she'd traded with the Shadows to get them to allow her to recover the fragments of Kari's soul, "Even if I was helping Yugi, which I shouldn't, other then to give him backup, I would be unable to help him during the last trial."

"Why?"

"The Orb Bearer failed it."

Silence again.

"I won't tell him, Ombre, but if you have any knowledge that could help my Grandsons and they get seriously hurt because you didn't share it…"

"I understand."

* * *

Serenity screeched as a Wall Shadow shot out of the wall and took a swipe at her, ducking under the attack and letting Yami's Dark Magician attempt to blast it.

The Warrior monster retreated back into the wall, the Dark Magic Attack bouncing off and nearly hitting the Pharaoh, who had to dive out of the way himself.

"Serenity, are you alright?" Yami asked, dashing over, keeping an eye out for the Wall Shadow, but aware that if he let anything happen to Joey's little sister, Joey would murder him.

"I…" Serenity stared at the walls that surrounded them, fear obvious.

"I won't let you get hurt, I promise." Yami offered her his hand. "Your brother would kill me."

Serenity glanced around at the walls once more, then nodded and took his hand. He helped her to her feet. "You think Joey's okay?" She asked hopefully, still warily watching the walls as they continued their progress around the maze.

"Yugi says he is." Yami nodded.

"Huh? You can still hear Yugi when he's not close by?"

"The link's stronger when Yugi's wearing the Puzzle, and this maze isn't big enough for the distance to affect it." Yami explained, "Your brother's ok."

"Yugi's not though, is he?"

"He's fine." Yami replied shortly.

"Yami, I saw how much pain Yugi was in. My monsters aren't healing people any more are they?"

"They're helping… not healing." Yami said with a small sigh.

"What do you mean?" Serenity stared at him.

"They're not healing the injuries." Yami said, "They're just suppressing the pain, kind of like when you use Apparaître on Dien Kento the Cure Master," He saw her blank look, "It suppresses the pain, but can't heal someone properly. It's a stalling tactic to give someone time to do what needs to be done and get to a healer."

"But just being here is stopping any wand magic from working, other wise I'd…"

"I know. I'm not complaining." Yami held up a hand, cutting her off, "Without your help we'd have been in trouble back during the first task, even with Yugi pushing himself as far as he is."

Serenity was worried, pain suppression was dangerous; pain was an indicator of when to let someone else take over, when to stop and rest… pushing yourself when you were injured wasn't likely to do more then cause the injuries to be worse, and the treatment and recovery to be longer.

And even when they got out of here, they still had to get to civilisation before a Doctor could look at them, not that she wouldn't see what she could do before then, but she'd only been working in a hospital since the end of exams a few weeks ago, she didn't know enough to trust herself too fully yet.

Yami wheeled around, pulling Serenity behind him as Wall Shadow leapt out again, his Dark Magician attempting to blast the Warrior again, only to have it slip away, unharmed. Yami cursed in Egyptian, then snorted and shook his head with a small smile.

"Yami?"

"Last time I faced one of these," He explained, "Your brother helped me out."

"How?"

"We were at Duellist Kingdom and your brother used his trap card to insure that my Celtic Guardian could actually catch the monster before it escaped back into the walls again."

"So you might need two monsters to catch it?" Serenity asked, thinking.

"Mystical Elf doesn't have enough attack points and I don't think Ancient Fairy Dragon is small enough to fit in the corridor." Yami frowned, thinking, as they reached yet another crossroads.

Serenity paused, looking at the moss in the corner, which appeared to be hiding something. "Yami." She called, edging over carefully, watching for sneak attacks and smiling as she tapped the capsule, which revealed three tiny fairies who danced around her and Yami.

"Cute." The Pharaoh commented, unimpressed, as the fairy with long brown hair giggled and drifted past his head.

"Helpful." Serenity corrected him, "They can recover a monster's health and they've got a decent attack too."

"Cute and helpful." Yami corrected himself, more interested in the stone and the fact he was almost certain that if they went left from here, they'd end up back where they started.

This would have been fine, had the route to the right not led to a dead end and the other route not led backwards.

Yami tried not to growl as they had to start all over again.

How much time had they just wasted?

* * *

The receptionist was surprised when a young man with long white hair suddenly appeared, leaning on the reception counter, enquiring about a young woman he was meant to meet.

"I don't remember every woman who stays here." The receptionist tried to look busy, checking over some files.

"It's really important." Bakura tried, having tracked Robyn here using a combination of the Millennium Ring and some magic detecting spells, "She's about five foot, short bl…dark hair," He remembered she'd dyed her hair at the hotel before last, although that didn't mean that she hadn't cast a disguise charm on herself, though she didn't appear prone to Wizarding methods to disguise herself, "Quite slight, light on luggage."

The receptionist looked up from her sparkly silver nails, thinking, "And she's been here for a couple of days?"

"Yes, we were going to meet up here, but I've been delayed."

"We had a lot of brunettes coming through here, was there anything special about this one?"

"Her name's Robyn Golden, she might have seemed confused or lost a lot of the time… rather shy, and she's taken a liking to Egyptian stuff lately so might have been wearing something strange."

The receptionist tapped the details into the computer, "If it's the girl I'm thinking of, she checked out this morning." She tapped the screen, "Yes, I remember her. She was wearing this really odd necklace with the eye of Horus on it and said she had to catch a plane."

"You're sure?"

"Wait a moment. I remembered her because of the odd necklace. She left a letter for…" She reached under the desk. "Ryou, Bakura and Draco?" The receptionist nodded, noting that there were some people waiting to register, "She probably waited until her flight was called."

Bakura frowned as he moved away from the counter, taking the letter with him. She had shown no inclination to head abroad before the last couple of places, which had both been close to airports. If she was heading to Japan, then it was likely that she was going to give the Millennium Items to the Pharaoh, who technically owned them, even if he constantly left them in the care of his hikari.

If she handed them over, then the opportunity that her holding them until the end of the summer had presented, would be lost and he'd have to go through the Pharaoh just to get his hands on them.

But he couldn't completely believe that she would wait until now to go…

Ryou and Draco were outside, waiting for him.

"Anything strange?" Ryou asked, noting Bakura's mood and wondering what Golden had done _this_ time.

"She's gone."

"Any clues where?"

"She left a letter for us, and was waiting for a plane"

"What does the letter say?"

"It says, 'Ha ha, you're too late, can't catch me now.'"

"She's gone to Yugi?" Draco looked worried.

It amused Bakura that Draco, like most of Slytherin house was still convinced that Yugi was the more dangerous one out of the Puzzle pair, even though it was Yami's explosive rages that caused the most openly shown fear from the snakes that inhabited the house… well except for Bakura's own dangerous fits of temper, but no one admitted to being scared of someone from your own house, it was thinly veiled in respect or dislike.

"It appears so." Ryou, physically, didn't react to the situation, but his shifting emotions caused Bakura to wheel on his hikari with a scowl. "What do you know?"

Ryou hesitated.

"Ryou." Bakura growled.

"Even if Golden went to Japan, she won't be able to hand over the Millennium Items until the end of next week. The guys are in India on holiday."

"How do you know that?"

"Ombre told me." Ryou admitted, knowing it was safe to do so, since Bakura had approved of his relationship with Ombre, if only because it was proving useful when his hikari had information that only people on the inside of the group could know. "Golden wouldn't know, because the dates were set up after the last time she spoke to the group."

Bakura gave him a considering look, then nodded. "I'm going to Domino."

"You sure? It could be a trap." Draco scowled.

"Shut up and let me finish." Bakura growled, "I'm going to Domino. You two are staying in England and keeping an eye out for any news. Use the tracking spells; see if you can find her if she is still in England."

"Do you have your passport with you?" Ryou asked, looking at Bakura's bag.

"No." Bakura replied, amused "It's in your bag."

* * *

There was silence as they walked along. Yugi was using the fact that he could sense Yami to direct him, in an attempt to meet up with the others, while Joey was too busy worrying about his sister to be chatty. They would have run, but Joey's untreated leg had stopped that idea before they'd gone more then a few paces.

"You're getting your leg treated willingly, when we find the others." Yugi told him, as he turned to give his friend, who was being assisted by Panther Warrior, a concerned look, the crashing sounds that had been echoing down the corridors to them getting louder. "Or I'm sitting on you till Serenity treats it, got it?"

Joey snorted, amused. It took a lot to annoy Yugi, but he'd successfully managed it when Yugi had found out that he hadn't let Serenity treat him because he felt like he deserved every injury he had for being unable to stop himself attacking when he'd been possessed.

Yugi, when annoyed, could, apparently, keep a rant going for longer then Hermione could when unleashing a full tirade about why they should be studying rather then playing games a week from exams, and that was saying something.

Okay, so he still felt like he should have been able to do something about being under the control of Red Eyes, but he didn't particularly want to invoke the wrath of the hikari again and Yugi was right, neither of them had been killed and he had managed to stop the Red Eyes from finishing Yugi off.

"Joey…" Yugi growled when he didn't get a satisfactory answer.

"All right, all right." Joey laughed at Yugi's over protectiveness. "My Pharaoh." He mock bowed.

The heir paused at Joey's comment, a confused look crossing his face for a moment, before the implications sank in properly and Yugi chuckled too.

The crashing sounds were drowned out by a rather loud rumbling noise.

"Oh you're kidding me." Joey groaned, recognising the rumble from the virtual world that they had entered in order to save Kaiba after he'd been trapped there by the Big Five, the same one that had the Princess version of Mokuba.

A Labyrinth Tank rolled around the corner.

"Sun…" Yugi froze as he realised that his Sunset Magician was still silver.

"Red Eyes!" Joey called, sending it out only to be squashed against the wall, his Panther Warrior roaring in protest then reverting to his capsule, the dragon proving too big for the corridor and the ceiling preventing it from flying above the maze.

Yugi reached for a different capsule, having nothing that was strong enough to take out a Labyrinth Tank without his Sunset Magician, but figuring that he could give Joey enough time to get away.

Something crashed through the wall, a huge stone foot coming through the wall and squashing the tank, which exploded, while a huge stone arm broke through the ceiling revealing an Ancient Giant with four passengers, two on each shoulder.

Yugi opened his mouth, then shut it again as Joey recalled his dragon, Serenity clambered down, with the help of her fairies, and Ombre waved at him.

"You're enduring, Yugi?" Solomon asked, amused at his Grandson's reaction as Serenity glomped her brother.

"I'm ok." Yugi nodded. He couldn't help asking. "Not that I'm not grateful, but isn't that cheating?"

"Not if the monster was inside the game." Solomon shook his head as his Ancient Giant put a hand on the ground for the three to climb up onto.

Once Serenity's fairies, which where actually part of one Monster, called Dancing Fairy, had eased the pain that had been plaguing Joey, the three climbed up onto the hand, and were soon at the exit of the maze, which was lit by the glow from two golden apples and had no low ceiling to prevent dragon flight.

"Where did that bug go?" Yami asked as they all climbed down, looking around with a wary scowl, having had enough of monsters jumping out at them to last for months.

"Cocoon." Joey pointed out, sending his Red Eyes back out as it started glowing pink and shattered, revealing a Great Moth.

Yugi didn't waste time going for Sunset Magician again, as Ancient Fairy Dragon and Criosphinx joined Red Eyes, sending out Gaia the Fierce Knight to stand by Dark Magician's side.

The Giant Moth batted its wings, sending poison at their monsters.

The dragons blew the dust away before it could reach anyone.

"Gaia!" Yugi turned to his monster, who turned his horse to look at him.

"Yugi, borrow Dark Magician." Yami interrupted him before he could activate the Duel Armour, then looked at Gaia, "That is, if Gaia would deign to lend me his aid."

The rider nodded.

"You're sure?" Yugi asked. When Yami nodded, Yugi fused with the Dark Magician, taking to the sky, to join the dragons.

The moth attacked, attempting to knock the dragons or Yugi out of the sky. It didn't work as Red Eyes managed to hit it with an Inferno Fire Blast and while the moth was still shaking off the first hit, Yugi, Ancient Fairy Dragon and Criosphinx had managed to get blows in.

Something exploded.

Everyone backed off…

With a cry the dust was blown away, the Great Moth had changed form, become a Perfectly Ultimate Great Moth.

Far below them, Joey swore.

Yugi flew between the dragons and the moth, horribly aware that they had nothing that even came close to beating the moth, which had a ridiculously high number of attack points, somewhere in the range of 3500…

The moth flapped its wings, creating a tornado which blasted through the air, the force of which caused Yugi to be blast straight past the two dragons that had been backing him up and hit the wall hard.

"No! Yugi!" Yami and Gaia darted forward, but it was Ancient Fairy Dragon who caught Yugi as he fell, catching the hikari in its huge handlike claw before roaring a challenge at the moth.

Red Eyes moved between it and the moth as a blue light surrounded Ancient Fairy Dragon, and drained into Yugi, who groaned and sat up. Red Eyes attempted to attack the moth with an Inferno Fire Blast, but the moth generated a shield, which reflected the attack back, striking Red Eyes down, causing it to come crashing to the ground and Joey to cry out.

Ancient Fairy Dragon, who hadn't long finished helping Yugi, let the young man take off again, before it started helping Joey's partner.

Meanwhile Criosphinx and Ancient Giant were distracting the moth as Yugi reached the pillars.

"He's taking a lunch break now?" Joey yelped as Yugi made short work of one of the golden apples.

As Yugi stood up, the armour came off, becoming Dark Magician again for a heartbeat, before the pair was surrounded in a rather bright, golden light. When it died, Yugi was stood on the pillar with a Magician of Black Chaos.

Then Yugi was fused with it.

The moth wheeled around, losing interest in everything else on the battle field.

That was just fine with Yugi, who attacked with Chaos Sceptre Blast, destroying the moth in one blast, before bringing the last apple down safely.

"You worked it out?" Serenity asked.

"Uh huh." Yugi nodded, "Once the moth became Ultimate Moth I worked out what we needed to do. You see we only needed one apple, but there were three up there. One was for the moth, one was to be offered up. So I reckoned that I could use one to power up a monster." He looked down at his armour, then grinned sheepishly at Yami. "Sorry."

"What for?" Yami looked surprised, "I'm sure the Dark Magician didn't mind."

Yugi handed the apple to Ombre and defused, sitting on the steps while the others recalled their monsters, waving off any concern, as Ombre darted up the steps, placing the apple on the alter.

Another segment on the pendant Serenity was wearing turned red.

The apple vanished and a staircase, which looked like it was primarily made of light, appeared, leading up to a stone door which opened to reveal a bright white light.

"That's a lot of stairs." Joey commented as Yugi sighed and stood up.

"Come on guys. One more task." Serenity grinned, "We're nearly home."

"True. Maybe we can actually go on vacation after this." Joey agreed with a small smile.

"Let's go, then." Yami chuckled, starting up the steps.

Serenity and Ombre rushed past him, "Last one up's a monkey's uncle." Ombre smirked, already ahead by miles.

"I'm the monkey's uncle, then." Solomon scowled as Yami darted after them.

"Not necessarily, Gramps." Joey said, as he and Yugi kept pace with him, "I feel a bit like a monkey today, what about you, Yuge?"

Yugi made a noise like a monkey and giggled. One more task. He could do this, he was sure of it.

Reaching the top of the steps, Yugi turned around to look down at the maze, shaking his head at the destruction that was obvious from up here. He couldn't help wondering who had created this Shadow Game, and what happened to each task once it was complete. Did it vanish or did it just reset for the next person to try it?

"You coming Yuge?" Joey asked, about follow Solomon through the portal of light.

"Coming." Yugi nodded, darting through just ahead of Joey.

Joey grimaced at the thought that he was now the monkey's uncle and followed his friend through, leaving the maze behind and hoping the next task would go as smoothly.


	9. Five

"We're back where we started." Yugi commented as they sat around a campfire, having arrived in the middle of what looked like the same forest that they had fallen into when they had first entered the game.

"It makes sense." Yami nodded, "If there's an entrance here, it's likely that there's an exit too."

Ombre tossed everyone a fruit from her bag. "We still have one task to complete, remember?" She asked. Everyone nodded, tucking in.

"Let's worry about finding the exit once it's done." Yugi agreed, finishing his plum.

"A wise decision."

Everyone jumped. Yami and Joey got to their feet and moved between the group and the man who had suddenly appeared in the shadows between the trees.

"It's alright, guys." Yugi called, as the man moved into the light so they could see who he was, revealing him to e the same man that had helped them so far.

Yami and Joey sat back down, and Yugi invited the man to join them.

"I cannot Prince Yugi, time draws short and your fifth and final challenge will prove to be your most difficult thus far."

"While I am grateful for the assistance that you have rendered us thus far," Yami frowned, "You appear to have us at a disadvantage, you know Yugi's name, but he doesn't know yours."

"I apologise." The man bowed for a moment, then straightened up and looked Yugi in the eyes, "My friend, I am King Alexandros the Third of Macedonia."

"Alexander the Great?" Ombre scowled.

"Indeed." He nodded, noting Ombre's look, "I assume then that you have heard of me."

"Indeed." Ombre nodded with a reply, "You single handedly nearly conquered the whole world. It would be difficult not to know of you."

Alexandros snorted, "The events of which you speak occurred many lifetimes ago."

Yugi got to his feet, "Why are you here?"

Alexandros threw back the cloak that he had been covering him during every other appearance, revealing his Roman clothes and a set of gold armour just like Yugi's.

"You took these trials too…"

"Indeed." He seemed to like that word, "It began around two millennia ago, as the world's most powerful empires fell at my feet. Greece, Persia, Egypt, I was unstoppable." Yugi sensed Yami bristle slightly and while he understood Yami's feeling on the fall of Egypt, it had been three thousand years after the Pharaoh's time, "And it was all thanks to a good luck charm I stumbled upon."

"Good luck charm?" Yugi frowned, "What kind of a…"

"Actually it was not unlike the one you wear." Yugi's hand automatically went to his Puzzle, "And while it brought me many victories, it seemed to cloud my mind. Before long I had lost the respect and loyalty of my men. When finally I stood alone, an Egyptian challenged me, told me that if I was to truly claim the power of the mystical, ring like charm I'd gotten in Egypt, and call myself a 'True King', I had to face the trails of the Capsule Monsters."

"I take it you were unsuccessful?" Yugi asked, wanting to hear more, but suspecting that the mystery man that had helped them so far and had been revealed to be King Alexandros the Third, better known in the modern age as Alexander the Great, was still within the game for this reason.

"My lust for power was my downfall." Alexandros nodded, "I'm sure you're all aware of what happened after I failed." He continued said with a small frown.

"Your invasion of India failed." Ombre nodded, "All bar a few of your men deserted you and your Empire fell. There was a rumour that the shock of your failure was so great that it killed you."

"You speak with certain knowledge of times long past." Alexandros frowned at Ombre.

"I am the Keeper of the Orb of Light, knowledge is my domain." She explained.

"In this you are correct, both about the invasion and about me; I failed the stranger's test and lost everything." He sighed and stood up, "It was my own fault and now it's your turn." He opened his right hand and a scroll appeared in it.

"This is the final trial." He told them. Yugi stood up to take it, but Alexandros the Third opened it and started reading. "Slay them all if you dare, earth, fire, sky, water and air."

"Slay them all?" Yugi questioned.

"Sounds simple enough." Joey nodded.

"But where do we start looking?" Serenity asked the King who stood in front of them.

"Luckily for you I know where to look." Alexandros said, offering Solomon a Capsule.

"Thank you, what monster is it?" Solomon asked as he got up.

"One that you will need, should you want to pass this test."

"I'm going to pass." Yugi told Alexandros firmly, "And get everyone out of this game safely."

"Follow me." The King ordered, turning around to leave.

"Yugi?" Yami asked, noting Yugi's slight frown. If Yugi said they weren't going to follow the Roman King, no one would follow Alexandros. An order from Yugi held far more sway and they trusted Yugi a lot more.

"Currently I think it's our best option." Yugi nodded, helping his Grandfather to his feet and put out the fire. "Come on." He looked in the direction Alexandros had gone, only to find that the King was waiting for them with an odd expression on his face.

"Are you alright?" Yugi questioned, going over to wait with him as the others quickly finished packing up.

"I am fine." Alexandros replied, reminded by the group of how close he had been to his own Vassals before he had gotten that accursed ring. "We should be moving, night is falling fast."

Yugi nodded, looking at his family, who finished off their packing and looked to him. He in turn, turned to the Roman King, who nodded and led them out of the forest, away from the river, towards the mountains, and across a small section of desert, until they reached a small town built into a valley.

By this point, Yugi had already worked out that the forest was the only thing the same from the first part of the game, and when Alexandros gestured for him to take point again, he did so, noting when the King fell back, having led them to a shrine to the divine dragon.

He heard Joey's amused snort and practically sensed Yami's eyes roll.

Kaiba would love this.

How could Yugi not know the carving on the wall that the villagers were praying too?

Even carved in stone, the dragon lost none of her majesty, none of her grace and certainly, even from just a craving, Yugi could sense her power.

That huge tablet was carved with an image of the Blue Eyes White Dragon.

But why were the villagers praying to her?

Yugi was about to step forward when a girl in a white dress stepped towards the priest, causing him to pause to listen to what the priest was saying to her.

"Are you prepared to offer up your soul to the divine beast, so it will continue to offer its protection to our people?"

Yugi heard Yami's low growl, heard Joey's swear word, but as he called to the priest, he had already made up his mind that he wasn't going to allow her to be sacrificed. They wouldn't be seeing this if there wasn't something that they could do about it.

After all, Kisara didn't eat souls…

He took another step forward and a blue circle of light radiated from where he put his foot down, catching the attention of all assembled.

"State your business." The priest complained, "We are in the middle of a sacred ceremony."

"I am Prince Yugi, these are my advisors." Yugi said, as calmly as he could manage, knowing that impressions were everything and if he was to find out what was going on and pass this part of the test, he would have to make a good one. "I apologise for interrupting."

The priest hesitated and Joey turned to the girl, "Don't worry, we'll protect you."

"I thank you but I'm fine." The girl said.

Yugi watched as Joey threw a rock over the cliff edge that they were stood on, and listened hard, turning back when there was no impact, "You call that fine?" He demanded.

"Joey." Yugi warned, noting the look on the priest's face. "We're here to slay some monsters you've been having trouble with."

The priest took a half step back and looked at them properly, "You're the legendary warriors." His voice was low, but it carried, causing murmurs from the assembled crowd.

"You were expecting us?" Yami didn't sound too amused by this.

The priest nodded, explaining that five viscous dragons had terrorised the area but had been banished by the divine white dragon, who had promised to protect the people until the legendary warriors arrived, in exchange for one soul, given as an offering, one per year.

The girl wasn't being forced into this either, she had offered.

Ombre nudged Yugi, who nodded, "Tell us where to find these five dragons and we'll defeat them. You won't have to sacrifice anyone ever again."

"You have no idea what you're dealing with!" One of the townsfolk protested, "I'm warning you, no human has ever entered the domain of the fiendish five and lived to tell the tale."

"We're not afraid." Yugi told him firmly.

"If you insist on pursuing this foolish quest," The priest nodded, causing them to turn back to him, "Then I will tell you were the fiendish five are."

"We will defeat these dragons, I promise." Yugi answered.

"Alright, they dwell in five nearby locations, the Whirlwind Forest, the Bottomless Spring, the Cavern of No Return, Meteor Mountain and the most dangerous of all the Great Molten Chasm. You have until sun up to conquer them all. If you do not, we will have to make our sacrifice."

"If they're so brave," The same member of the populace spoke up, "Let them offer one of their souls."

"Fine." Yugi replied, "If we should fail, you can have…"

"My soul." Yami interrupted Yugi's offer, noting the look he was getting from his hikari for doing so and trying to ignore it.

"I won't let it come to that." Yugi's tone stated his intentions of not failing incredibly clearly. "We won't fail."

"If this works, we'll be forever in your debt." The priest sounded relived, "Good luck, my friends."

The girl led them into the centre of town, where another dragon statue was stood, this one with none of the grace or power of the carving, and at the base of it there was a sword embedded in the rocks. Apparently it was called the Sword of Divinity and could be the only thing that could slay the fiendish five.

However no one could remove it from the stone and just standing here talking was wasting precious minutes of moonlight that they could ill afford to waste.

Yugi winced as his mind came up with the only logical plan of action considering time constraints and what needed to be done, knowing no one was going to like it and everyone would want to rant at him at the same time, "We need to split up."

He was right, the noise that erupted was enough to wake the dead.

He took a leaf out of Dumbledore's book. "QUIET!"

The others shut up, immediately. Yugi made a note of it for future reference.

"I don't care how much you guys hate it; we don't have time to go together." Yugi told them firmly, scowling as he did so, he needed them to listen and obey without questioning; there was no time for questioning. They could rant and rave all they liked once they were out of here but for now, they needed to follow his orders. "I'll take the Great Molten Chasm, Joey, Serenity, the Whirlwind Forest, Grandpa, Bottomless Spring please, Ombre, I need you to deal with the Cavern of No Return, Yami, you take Meteor Mountain." He could make one concession and send Serenity with Joey at least.

"Let me take the Great Molten Chasm." Yami told Yugi.

Joey watched with amusement as Yugi turned around, fixing his dark side with a look that quite obviously said 'don't start' and told him that he would be taking the Great Molten Chasm and obviously Yami liked wasting time and coming closer and closer to having his soul taken by Kisara, or he wouldn't be arguing, they would be leaving.

Yami scowled at Yugi's comment, but it did cause them to get directions and leave.

There would be a row later, Joey could see it, but for now the urgency of the task at hand was enough to push such pettiness to one side.

They split up.

* * *

For the first couple of days of the holiday, the entire Burrow had been quiet.

Then slowly, as everyone picked themselves up, life had started up again.

Mum had started going about her daily business with as much noise as normal, Ginny had started texting Luna, Rebecca and Mokuba pretty much constantly, she appeared to be glued to the phone that Kaiba had given her, Dad, who had returned to work the next day, had started tinkering with things again, the twins had started working on whatever it was they had been working on again, and Percy, who had barely been effected by what had happened merely returned to being an officious prat again.

Yesterday's game of Quidditch hadn't been the first time they had been on their brooms by any means, but it was the first time that they had really enjoyed the game since the last task of the Triwizard Tournament, and Ron had thought that it had helped a lot.

However, Fred and George's room had been suspiciously quiet for the last few days except for the occasional sound of squeaking.

There was a reason for this, though Ron didn't know it.

Hermione, Ombre and Robyn weren't the only ones who had gotten something out of Kari's will. Along with the notes that she had left for them, she had transferred five hundred Galleons into an account just for the twins, claiming that she wanted them to follow their dreams, and that they were to use this money to start their own joke shop.

If you added to that the prize money that Harry had given them for the same purpose, when he didn't want it and Ombre wouldn't take it, Weasley's Wizard Wheezes were well under way to becoming much more then just a mail order shop.

However, in exchange for Harry's input, they had given him a partnership in the company, and they felt that they had to do something to remember Kari, but they couldn't decide what.

It didn't feel right, creating a range of pranks after her, but George had remembered that she'd really loved Iced Mice, but she'd complained that the enchantments wore off too quickly and if you left the Iced Mice for more then a couple of days, you tended to find that the favour wasn't as good, as the potions in the recipe did something funny to the sugar.

Which was why they were quiet right now. They were trying to reverse engineer some Iced Mice to figure out exactly how they worked and see if they could do it better and in a much more interesting way.

They were planning on trying to see if they could make them study aids, temporarily boost your leaning intake or some such thing, it was doable, there were potions that could do the same thing, and it was something that Kari would have appreciated.

They thought they had the spell work down now, certainly they could get sweets to run around and squeak, but it was getting the potions involved to hold their potency without turning the sweets bad that was eluding them.

But it had only been a week and a half, they'd get there. They'd only worked out how to do the squeaking charm so fast because it was a lot like a spell they'd used on another product, their Liquorice Bats, and those still weren't perfect, they were hoping to get them finished by Halloween though.

Of course if they could get their mother to stop snooping around, things would be so much easier…

* * *

Solomon had been rather glad that the capsule the Roman King had given him had contained Curse of Dragon as the dragon Yugi had entrusted him with defeating appeared from the supposedly Bottomless Spring.

It was an Aqua Dragon, so in theory it should not have been too much of an issue for his Dragon, except that for some odd reason attacks that should have destroyed the enemy Sea Serpent were doing little but bouncing off or exploding.

There was something wrong about this…

Aqua Dragon took off; turning towards the south-east, dodging Curse of Dragon's attacked easily.

Solomon suddenly had a moment of clarity on what was going on and what was needed.

The dragons would reach the village, they had to for the next stage of the trial, and worse then that, they had to get there at around the same time…

It had something to do with that sword, the one that they hadn't been able to remove from the stones earlier, he was certain of it. What had that girl said?

Oh yeah.

"When a great power descends from the skies the sacred sword will rise."

The dragons were incredibly powerful creatures… when they arrived in town he suspected that would count as the great power descending from the skies, which would leave the sword free for the Legendary Hero, and that had to be Yugi, as these were his trials, to take and use to slay the fiendish five.

Solomon climbed onto Curse of Dragon and chased Aqua Dragon, trying to slow it down when he saw Red Eyes and Ancient Fairy Dragon were battling a Luster Dragon, slowing its progress considerably, Yami had picked up a Black Luster Soldier from somewhere. As he watched, Blast Luster Solider actually waved at Serpent Night Dragon, trying to lure it into attacking the Meteor Dragon that he was riding.

Solomon was certain that this was a bad idea, no matter how much stronger the knight was, but since Yugi was close behind, trying to do battle with an Ancient Dragon, while keeping an eye on that particularly bad idea, not that this task hadn't been riddled with them so far, but Solomon didn't really want to think about how much it would hurt to fall about a hundred foot to the ground, and knew that if Yugi missed catching Luster Soldier, and no one else could get there in time Yami would feel everything the Dark Warrior monster did.

"Yugi!" Serenity flew up between Yugi and the incoming attack, her dragon hit by the pulse of dark energy that Serpent Night Dragon had sent at the Duellist, who had been distracted with stopping Ancient Dragon from blasting Red Eyes into next week.

Joey watched in horror as Serenity was knocked off of her dragon, who reverted to a capsule and fell into the forest, and fell through the air. Yugi dove to try and catch her, only to be stopped when he was hit by a second attack from the dragon which had injured Joey's little sister, and though Joey had already sent Red Eyes into a dive to catch her, it was Solomon and his Curse of Dragon that snatched her out of the air.

Red Eyes wheeled on Serpent Night and everyone and everything was forced to move out of the way as Joey's partner monster when berserk on Serpent Night.

And still the damn thing wouldn't stop in its attempts to reach the village.

Yugi saw his Grandfather touch down in a clearing near to where Ancient Fairy Dragon had fallen, but, since he knew they were safe, he had to focus on reaching the town before the fiendish five did.

He needed the people to go into hiding. He had a plan but he wasn't sure it would work.

"Everyone hide. The dragons are coming!" Yugi demanded as he landed, rushing over to the pedestal where the Sword of Divinity was stood, "Please," He muttered, "Let this work."

The dragons arrived.

Yugi pulled on the sword.

It came out easily, the rust appearing to fall away.

The dragons were surrounded by a blue glow, all of them, including the enemy ones, and Yugi felt his strength rise.

He attacked, taking down the fiendish five in one fell swoop.

The five dragons came crashing to the ground.

The guys landed in a circle around the sword plinth, and the girl rushed over, "Are you alright?" She asked him.

"Yes." Yugi nodded, wondering if his Grandfather and Serenity were.

"Thank you kind sir. You spared my soul and I am forever in your debt."

"You truly are the Chosen One." The priest nodded, smiling slightly.

' _Something wrong?'_ Yami asked, when Yugi didn't seem happy about the fact they'd defeated the dragons.

" _This isn't over."_ Yugi replied, thinking quickly, turning to the dragons, who were beginning to pick themselves up. The task had said 'slay them all', not 'defeat them all' but the sword wasn't glowing any more. He didn't have the power now to destroy one dragon, yet alone all five.

With a single roar, the fiendish five turned green and fused together.

Five dragons, one fusion… Yugi knew what was coming even as he backed up and started telling the villagers to run for it. There was only one monster in all of Duel Monsters that required the tribute of five dragons of different elements in order to summon it and he had no light monsters to combat it with… unless… he looked over his shoulder, towards the shrine as the fusion came to it's completion… he needed help and he knew he had to, somehow, get help from Kisara.

But how to call her?

A five tone roar pierced Yugi's thoughts, making him turn back towards the enemy.

Five God Dragon, also known as Five-Headed Dragon, or in Kaiba's game world, the Mythic Dragon, glowered at him.

Yugi felt a surge of fear pass through him.

Five God could only be defeated by a creature of Light and he had none. He had no idea how he was supposed to call to Kisara and if he let this dragon rampage, it was going to kill everyone there, there was no doubt about it.

He had to stop it, and he could think of one possible way without a Light attribute Duel Monster.

He heard the gasp from the villagers as he started glowing with a bright white light.

He could call on his own magic and his own aura to use to battle the creature.

"Yugi?" Yugi heard Joey's hesitant tone, sensed Yami's shock turn to concern.

Yugi raised the sword, using it and his light in a combination attack on the dragon, distracting it from the villagers, giving them time to get away.

It had been his failure that had let the fiendish five become this monster and he wasn't going to let them destroy this town.

The dragon bellowed in pain, but its counter attack from the dark head sent Yugi flying. He crashed into the ground painfully, stunned for a couple of moments, unable to move or think.

In another couple of moments, the five headed dragon had brought everyone else crashing to the ground.

Yugi got to his feet, summoning more light, "I won't lose…" He growled. "Ombre, Yami, Joey, please, protect the villagers."

"Yugi…"

"Don't argue with me, I'll deal with the Dragon, you protect the people." Yugi snapped back.

Ombre moved without hesitation, Joey following slowly, Yami moving last of all. No one noticed that the girl who they had saved from being sacrificed had run to the temple.

Five God opened fire on a group of Villagers.

Yugi got between the attack and the villagers, throwing up his left arm instinctively to shield himself, using his capsule launcher to try to shield himself from the powerful attack, just as he had used his Duel Disk in the past.

A lot of the other townsfolk joined the girl in the shrine of the divine dragon.

Yugi was barely able to block the blast from just the two heads, so when a third and fourth joined in the attack, he was knocked off of his feet and left, semi-conscious on the ground a few foot backwards from where he had been.

"Yugi!" Yami darted forward as Five God prepared to strike for the final time, readying all of its heads for its ultimate attack.

Yami was never going to reach Yugi in time.

A roar. The roar. The most unmistakeable roar in all of Duel Monsters. Even the cry of the God Cards wasn't as well known.

Five God Dragon opened fire.

* * *

They had arrived at the foot of the pyramid to find that not much had gotten done since they had told the rescue parties that they were on their way down from the airport and to be organised and ready to enter the pyramid.

When they arrived they found nothing was sorted.

In a matter of minutes Seto had split the searchers into four teams. Squads A, B and C would enter the pyramid with him, to look for Yugi and the others, while Team D, headed by Mokuba, would stay at the base camp with the healers and technicians, just in case it was attacked.

Seto was in the process of pushing past the traps that were trying to impede their progress into the Pyramid, leading A Group, amused by the fact that these, obviously ancient, traps still worked after all this time. Either these were ancient traps that the others hadn't triggered on their way past, but thinking about who had passed through here earlier that wasn't likely, or these were ancient style traps that had been reset by the group that had kidnapped Yugi and the others.

That or someone had reset the traps behind the earlier group.

"Mr Kaiba…" Someone spoke up as they reached a room that split off in three different directions.

"A group, with me, this way." He pointed towards the downwards steps to his left. "B group, that way," He pointed towards the stairs upwards, "C group, that way." He indicated the steps downwards and to his right. "If you locate the Mutos and their group, report in immediately."

"Yes Mr Kaiba." The group leaders of B and C nodded and led their groups in the directions he'd ordered.

He wasn't convinced that there would be such a large group of witches and wizards, if he wasn't offering such a huge wage to the search party, but he didn't care. The company could afford it, and he wasn't going to risk the enemy offering more. There weren't many people who could afford to offer fifty galleons an hour, with a two thousand Dollar bonus each, to the group that found the missing people within twelve hours.

He watched B and C groups depart and then started heading downstairs.

It didn't matter what country or culture you were raised in. Money was always an issue. Over half his staff at one point had been loyal to him only for the money, and while this wasn't an issue so much anymore, he knew that the two things that attracted people to Kaiba Corp were the influence it would have on their future job prospects and the wages he paid out.

He was just glad that he'd left his brother outside. The pyramid hadn't degraded enough to have been left to wind and rain for as long as it should have been and even if a pyramid had been hidden from Muggle eyes, there would have been something on the maps that represented the huge crater it was sat in and there was nothing.

This was obviously a trap for Yugi and the others, and while he hadn't been able to prevent Mokuba coming with him. He had been able to convince Mokuba that he was needed by the base camp, rather then following him in.

Yugi and the others were supposedly family now, and Seto would do whatever was in his power to help them, but Mokuba was the one that Seto would offer his life for. Only Mokuba had been there during the worst times of his life, only Mokuba truly knew what he had been through at the hands of Gozabora, and only Mokuba had prevented him going completely insane or dying at the hands of his insane teacher…

Everything he could ever possibly do to protect his brother… it would never be enough, not ever.

But if he could stop Mokuba from following him into danger, then it was one small light in what was turning into a rather bad week.

"What… is this?" Mira Lin, the leader of Group A, asked, looking around the room they arrived in.

The group stopped to look around. Seto made a note of the floor, which appeared to be a map of some kind. He could sense the magic from it…

There was a man watching them, looking incredibly startled.

"Who are you?" Kaiba demanded.

"I was about to ask you the same question." The blonde male stood up. "I am Dr Alex Brisbane. This is the pyramid of Alexander the Great. What are you doing here?"

* * *

A roar. The roar. The most unmistakeable roar in all of Duel Monsters. Even the cry of the God Cards wasn't as well known.

Five God Dragon opened fire.

"YUGI!"

A bluish light burst from the carving and shot in front of Yugi, shielding the Prince from the attack, before shooting skywards and forming the shape of the dragon that that had been depicted on the wall.

"Kisara, help me, please!" Yugi pleaded.

She roared.

There was a burst of white light which swirled around Yugi, pulling him to his feet, allowing him to stand. He could feel power surging through him, as his armour defused, became a capsule again and new armour formed around him, power that resonated with his heart and soul.

When the light died Yugi was floating in mid air in a rather impressive set of white armour that glowed with a pale blue light.

Solomon and Serenity arrived on the back of Curse of Dragon as Yugi turned to glower at the dragon.

"What…?" Serenity asked.

"He fused with the divine dragon." Solomon sounded impressed, recognising the wings that sprouted from the back of the armour and the head that adorned one side of the chest plate.

Five God Dragon roared at Yugi, attempting to strike him down with a blast from its entire set of five heads, but missing when he dodged easily, striking his own blow that caused the Five-Headed Dragon to bellow in agony.

"I won't let you destroy this village." Yugi's voice carried surprisingly well considering the noise that was going on, as the light from the sword that he had gained when he had fused with Blue Eyes grew bright enough to be painful to the eyes,

Five God Dragon opened fire again.

"White Lightening Strike!"

A burst of light from the sword, laced with electricity, battled for a moment with the five energy blasts from the dragon, before piercing through and striking Five God Dragon in the chest.

The dragon bellowed, collapsed and exploded.

The sun rose above the horizon…

The last stone on the pendant that Serenity was wearing lit up.

It was over.

They had won.

Yugi floated in mid air for a little longer, taking a deep breath, before landing among his friends.

The armour defused from Yugi by itself, part of the bluish white light it left behind shooting into his Capsule Launcher, which ejected a Capsule straight into his hands, and part of it returning to the wall, to become a carving once again.

"Yuge, that was awesome." Joey sounded astounded, causing Yugi to giggle, trying not to wonder why he had been given a capsule even though the trials were over.

Yami gave him a small, proud smile, making Yugi grin back.

"I will not be sorry to get out of here." He heard Ombre mutter, as they said goodbye to the villagers and headed back towards the forest.

"I would not be so hasty if I were you." Alexandros murmured.

"King Alexandros?" Yugi asked, wheeling around to look at him.

Yami turned to scowl at the Roman King, "What haven't you told us?"

"You have completed the five trails, but your journey is not yet complete. One task remains."

"What?" Joey demanded, thoroughly sick of this whole thing and wanting nothing more then to get Yugi to a doctor and his sister somewhere safe.

"Once you make it back to your world, you must quickly locate a hidden chamber at the top of the pyramid, your pendant will now be able to open the door. Once inside, you will be granted the power I once craved. The power to rule the world."

"I've already told you, I don't want that power." Yugi scowled at the King, wondering why he was so determined that he get all this power. "All I want is for us to get home safely."

"I know." Alexandros was fully aware of Yugi's irritation, but he had to be made aware of the stakes if he didn't claim the power that was now his. He removed his mask, revealing…

"He looks like Doctor Brisbane…" Serenity breathed.

"I've known Dr Brisbane for years." Solomon didn't look amused, "And though he bares a striking resemblance to this man, I can assure you that they are not the same person."

"I'm afraid that what you speak is only half true, Dr Muto." Alexandros replied. "Your colleague is possessed by my dark half."

"What?" Joey yelped. Ombre merely looked irritated, Serenity was shocked, Solomon's scowl deepened, but Yugi and Yami merely looked at each other, conversing quickly over the link before turning to Alexandros.

"You said that you had an item like ours." Yugi asked for confirmation.

Alexandros nodded.

"It looks like we weren't the only soul split by the Millennium Items in the past." Yugi hissed. "Am I right? Your Ring, the 'good luck charm' from Egypt, it did this to you, didn't it?"

"Indeed." Alexandros nodded. "I was trapped in this world, while my evil side was locked in the pyramid, until Dr Muto and Dr Brisbane entered the temple. Dr Brisbane is a direct descendant of mine and my dark half seized control of him the moment he stepped foot in the temple and brought you here to unlock the power that we never could."

"How can you know this?" Yami demanded.

Alexandros looked from Yugi to Yami and then to the Puzzle, Yugi's words registering in his mind. "My link to my dark side remains strong as long as he remains in the pyramid containing this game." He explained. Yami looked disbelieving, "Now is not the time for questions," He turned away from Yami and spoke exclusively to Yugi, "You must take that power before he does.

"Serenity, give me the pendant." Yami demanded, "I'll guard it."

"No." Alexandros looked a little frightened, reaching for his capsules as Serenity took the necklace off and offered it to the Pharaoh. "You can't…"

"I trust Yami with my life," Yugi reached for his own, warning Alexandros as he did so. "An attack on him is an attack on me."

"But…" Alexandros growled at their stubbornness, "You cannot allow darkness to seize this power." He warned Yugi.

"I won't." Yugi promised. "Your dark side is going to be waiting, isn't he?" He asked, trying to change the subject.

"Yes." Alexandros nodded.

Ombre looked from Yugi to Yami, then thought for a moment before turning to Alexandros. "If we could get you into our world, could you hold down your dark side?"

"What do you mean?" The King looked confused, but Yugi got it instantly.

"If you piggyback onto one of our minds, we can get you into our world," Yugi explained, "And if we do that, then you can try to rejoin your dark side in one body. If we do that, would you be strong enough to keep your dark side from attacking us long enough for us to be able to stop him?"

Alexandros thought for a moment. "I believe so…"

"Alex is my friend," Solomon said, when Yami caught Yugi's arm before he could make the offer and gave him a glower that basically equated to 'no way, no how', "You can possess me."

"You sure Grandpa?" Yugi asked, hesitating.

"I'm certain." Solomon nodded.

"Then please, excuse me…" Alexandros put his hand on Solomon's arm and in a bright flash of light disappeared completely.

Yugi froze, watching his Grandfather carefully. "Grandpa, are you ok?"

"I now understand why you used to get distracted when Yami was talking to you." Solomon replied. Yugi chuckled nervously, not sure that allowing someone to possess his grandfather was the best idea.

Any chance of a change of plans taken from them as in a burst of golden light they vanished from the forest.


	10. Battle

"Who are you?" Kaiba demanded.

"I was about to ask you the same question." The blonde male stood up. "I am Dr Alex Brisbane. This is the pyramid of Alexandros the Great. What are you doing here?"

Kaiba's response was cut off by the appearance of a bright light, which died down to reveal Yugi and the others.

Alex shoved past Kaiba to help Solomon up. "My dear friend, you're okay."

"Yugi?" Kaiba demanded, watching Yugi slowly stand up, a pained squeak escaping his lips as he leaned slightly on Joey to do so.

"Seto?" Yugi asked, surprise crossing his features.

Yami, though he had winced when Yugi had squeaked, was acting surprisingly calm considering that Yugi seemed to be quite badly beaten up, and had turned to watch the interaction between his Grandfather and the Doctor who had been waiting for their return.

"Yami, may I?" Solomon asked.

Seto watched Yami pull an oddly shaped pendant out of his pocket and carefully pass it to Solomon, noting the whole dynamic of the group had changed the moment that the pendant had come into view.

He frowned as a ghost in roman clothes appeared just behind Solomon and leapt at Dr Brisbane.

One of the members of search party A stepped forward as the ghost was absorbed by the man.

"No!" Yugi commanded, his tone surprising Seto, who had no idea how to respond to that tone from Yugi. It had an effect on the person who'd moved though, causing them to freeze in place as Alexandros picked himself up. "Dr Brisbane?" Yugi asked.

"I'm fine, I just…" He snatched the pendant, "Need this!"

He turned and bolted up the stairs.

"Get him!" Yugi snarled, pushing Joey away and chasing Dr Brisbane up the stairs.

Seto was moving third, only just behind Yami, though he wasn't sure why, just aware that if Yugi didn't want someone to get away with some odd object it couldn't be good.

By the time he had reached the top of the stairs, Yugi and Yami were trying to stop Dr Brisbane from entering a door he had opened and none of his B group knew quite what to do.

Dr Brisbane threw himself threw the door, taking Yugi and Yami with him, and the three of them fell, Seto launched himself forward, moving before he really knew what he was doing, and managed to catch a hold of Yami's arm, wincing as his shoulders protested his attempts to stop the falling of three people.

"Hang on." Within seconds, Joey was giving him a hand, helping him pull them up.

Dr Brisbane did not like this in the slightest and managed to push himself away from the wall using his legs, taking Yugi and Yami with him.

The shift in weight caused Joey and Seto to over balance and fall and when Ombre, Serenity and Solomon tried to grab them, they too were dragged down into the darkness with them.

"Mr Kaiba!" Someone was shouting then there was a loud slam and darkness, like, most likely, the ground, rushed to meet them.

* * *

To hear that his brother had found Yugi and the others was a relief.

Right up until the search party had told Mokuba that Mr Kaiba, upon locating Mr Muto and the others, had proceeded to follow aforementioned group up the stairs and had last been seen falling into a hole on the other side of a door which, now, was refusing to open and had resisted blasted charms.

Also A Group, who had been with Seto when he had gone down into the odd map room that Mr Muto and his friends had emerged from, had discovered that one of their number had vanished upon stepping on a tile which appeared to make up the map and what did Mokuba want them to do about it?

Mokuba stared at the Group D party leader for a moment, wondering how he would go about organising a search party for the missing member of the search party.

His primary concern, of course, was that door that his brother had gone missing through, but since it had been Kaiba Corp who had brought people here; it was Kaiba Corp who was responsible for anyone who vanished.

"Your group see if you can track any magic leaving that room, but DO NOT step on that map again, got it?" Mokuba replied. "Meanwhile, where are groups B and C?"

B group was currently trying to get through the door, while C group had gotten lost in the catacombs under the pyramid somewhere.

Mokuba had to fight very hard not to face palm.

What was it about this Pyramid that made people get lost so easily? Were the confundus charms on it or something?

"Mr Mokuba, sir, what are you going to do?"

"Get me inside the pyramid, I'll summon a Duel Monster to find group C, then I'll locate my brother. Report back to me when you have any data on where that missing group A member could be."

"Yes, sir."

Mokuba followed Group D into the pyramid, leaving ground control in the capable hands of the newly founded group F, who were all support, like healers, technicians and the two wizards who had refused to enter the pyramid (they were using the excuse of someone needing to be outside in case of an attack), and successfully navigated the traps to reach the room where C group had split off from the main group, calling a Blue Eyes White Chick to find them and lead them back up, then headed upstairs, towards the room where his brother had vanished behind that door.

This was a nightmare…

Where on earth could Seto have gone? How far had he fallen? Was he injured? Was he…?

Alone as he reached the top steps, Group D having split off to help group A, he arrived to find all of Group B unconscious.

A mysterious man in a turban was stood, with a Millennium Item, examining them.

"What did you do?" Mokuba demanded, drawing his wand and figuring (justifiably, since everyone they had run into with a Millennium Item was trouble or attracted it) that this man would know what the heck was going on, "And where is my brother?"

"Who are you?" The turbaned man demanded, amused by Mokuba's threatening posture.

"I should ask you the same question." Mokuba returned, deciding that butting heads with a Millennium Item wielder was not the smartest thing he'd ever done, but he was going to do it anyway.

"I am Shadi, Guardian of the Millennium Items. I watch over this Shadow Game, as I do many others."

"I'm Mokuba Kaiba," Mokuba replied, worry sinking in, "Did you say this Shadow Game?"

"Yes."

"Is my brother caught up in it?"

"Your brother? The one who commands the Blue Eyes White Dragon?"

"Yes."

"He joined the Shadow Game when he attempted to prevent Prince Yugi and King Alexandros from taking the final task."

"What will happen to him?" Mokuba demanded, having heard the horror stories about people who had interfered with Shadow Games, that had been passed round Hogwarts, probably by Bakura, and they never ended well.

"Unless your brother can defend himself from Duel Monsters, it is likely that he will die."

"WHAT?" Mokuba snapped, glowering at Shadi.

"Your brother fell into the final battle between Prince Yugi and King Alexandros, they are about to fight a war. Unless your brother can defend himself, he will either die or get someone killed." Shadi told him bluntly.

"Get out of our way." Mokuba demanded. "And stop interfering with my people."

"If you interfere in the Shadow Game, it will cost Prince Yugi and everyone with him their Souls."

* * *

Seto was already on his feet, examining the odd gold bracer on his right arm when Yugi turned to look at him, "You're not supposed to be here." The heir said, eyes wide, concern obvious, reaching for a capsule on his belt.

"A little gratitude would be nice." Seto growled, "I came to find the lot of you, perhaps you'd prefer to remain lost next time."

"It's not that." Yugi shook his head, "Of course we're grateful, but…" He was cut off by a menacing laugh.

"You've got yourself into trouble again." Seto nodded, understanding as the evil side of Alexander the Great appeared before them.

Yugi shoved a gold capsule into his hand, as the former King started talking. Kaiba gave the hikari an odd look, but Yugi's attention was fully on Alexandros.

"I see you've gained an advisor, Prince Yugi." Alexandros gestured towards Seto, who just responded by raising an eyebrow.

"He didn't come by choice." Yugi told Alexandros, "This fight is between you and me, leave my friends out of it."

"But what kind of a test of Leadership is it, if you do not command your troops in battle?" Alexandros snorted, "After all, my vassals have been waiting two thousand years for this…" Apparently from no where, five people, in roman clothing, appeared to stand behind the King.

"I don't mind one more round." Joey shrugged, "What do you say, Yams?"

Kaiba hid his amusement at the nickname well, and glanced at the Pharaoh, who was looking irritated. "One more. Then we go home."

"Seto, I wish I didn't have to ask this of you…" Yugi hesitated.

The CEO snorted, "If you're going to be family, I'm not letting you screw up." He replied, noting the small smile that Yugi gave him, before turning serious again as he turned back to his enemy.

The enemy sent out all of their capsule monsters, Yugi's team followed suit, Seto quickly grasping what he had to do from seeing Alexandros do it, shocked to find that Yugi had been holding a capsule containing a Blue Eyes White Dragon, more stunned by that then by Yugi using the armour he was wearing to fuse with his Sunset Magician.

"I think you have some explaining to do when this is over." Seto told Yugi, who nodded.

Suddenly even Blue Eyes looked swamped as Alexandros summoned his monster to fuse with, a huge golden monster that went by the name, Reshef, the Dark Being.

"It's big…" Serenity murmured, as Alexandros fused with it, cackling uncomfortably like Yami Marik had when his grip on reality had been practically gone, her Ancient Fairy Dragon taking to the skies, alongside Seto's Blue Eyes, Joey's Red Eyes and Solomon's Curse of Dragon.

"Yes." Yami nodded, "But Yugi's stronger."

In brute strength, yes, Sunset Magician was stronger, Seto conceded that Yami was right about that, but in terms of special abilities, Reshef had the advantage in Capsule Monsters, and that would make this battle difficult enough as it was. He assumed that their task was to clear the way for Yugi to get to the maniac up there, a simple enough task for his dragon, but Seto couldn't help wondering why Yugi had ended up leading the fight, when normally Yami was the one who led the troops in battle.

If he was judging things correctly, Yami had just got out of his 'Crazy over protective' stage, passed through his 'useless' stage, and was still in 'but I should be saving the world' stage, with a nod to the 'Yugi is fully capable' stage.

"Let me go after Alexandros." Yugi told them, "You concentrate on taking out his helpers."

"Yuge…" Joey hesitated, not through lack of willingness to follow Yugi's orders, but through concern about the injuries that Yugi was still hiding.

"I can handle it. I promise." Yugi replied, knowing, and hoping his friends would trust him.

"If you're not up to the task, mutt, Blue Eyes and I can take them on alone." Seto prodded Joey to distract him, and then hoped no one knew what he was up to.

Silence fell as Shadi's voice echoed over the virtual battle field, "Dr Alex Brisbane, who contains the soul of King Alexandros the Third, shall face Yugi Muto, Prince of the Shadows in an all out Capsule Monsters war. Only he who is worthy to be named the 'True King' shall prevail. Now, begin."

Alexandros opened fire with the lasers from his armour, before the word begin was halfway over, causing Yugi to cast a shield to protect those on the ground as the dragons darted easily out of the way.

Before the gang could recover, the monsters summoned by those serving under Alexandros were on them. Seto nodded to Joey as his Flame Swordsman helped Seto, who had been under attack by Dark Jeroid, since he only had his dragon to protect him, and in return Seto's Blue Eyes had helped Joey's Red Eyes as a Manticore of Darkness attempted to attack it from behind.

Serenity and Ombre had each other's back, as Serenity's Ancient Fairy Dragon easily annulated the Succubus Knight that had been approaching and Ombre's Heircosphinx had little trouble destroying the Firewing Pegasus that had been approaching the girls.

Meanwhile, Solomon was in the process of locating the Stealth Bird belonging to the other side and Yami had just sent Magician of Black Chaos to assist Yugi, who had darted around the fighting and was heading for Alexandros.

"Hey Rich Boy," Joey called as his Red Eyes destroyed a monster, since Seto had called him a mutt earlier he didn't call him on it, "Bet my side can take down more enemies then yours."

It took Seto a moment to process what Joey was on about, and then smirked as it hit him. "Please, my one dragon's worth six of your guys." He snorted.

"Fight now; compare the size of your dragons later." Yami growled at them, as he jumped backwards narrowly avoiding an attack, which was then intercepted by his King's Knight.

Joey snorted and Seto rolled his eyes before the pair of them threw themselves back into the fight.

"Begone." Alexandros's voice distracted them, as Yugi went flying backwards in a flash of red laser light, crash landing at Seto's feet. Yami's Magician of Black Chaos was there in a heartbeat to help him up.

Alexandros sent out a monster, "Loyal servants, you and your monsters are now dismissed." In flashes of many different colours, all of the enemy monsters vanished. It was obviously painful for the servants, because their cries of pain stopped Yugi in his tracks, causing him to turn around to try to work out what was going on. "I sacrifice you all to summon my Seven Armed Fiend."

Yami darted over to his hikari, concerned, but the hikari was staring at the monster that had appeared, covered in grey fur, with six arms and a hand with a face on for a head.

"Yugi?"

"That monster… it was in my nightmare…" Yugi murmured.

"Great…"

"Be careful, that's one of the most dangerous monsters in Capsule Monsters." Solomon shouted down from the back of his Curse of Dragon.

Seto snorted as he looked at the creature. Capsule Monsters was Mokuba's game, and Mokuba had begged him to let him have control over the capsule monsters virtual tech that was in development, so Seto didn't have much clue about the abilities of the monsters, but in the game of Duel Monsters, Seven-Armed Fiend was a level one normal Dark fiend, with only 666 attack points…

Yugi took off again, attempting to blast the fiend before it could do any damage.

It raised a hand, forming a black shield. Yugi's starlight blast bounced off of the shield and nearly hit Blue Eyes, who roared angrily at Yugi, who gave it an apologetic look over his shoulder, while trying to work out what had happened.

Alexandros laughed, "It's Arm of Defence is only one of the powers it has in this game, your highness." That explained why it was so dangerous, "Every attack you try, will fail, and every arm has its own special ability. You'll never win!"

"Try me." Yugi called back, unwilling to admit defeat that easily.

"Arm of Skulls!" Alexandros ordered.

Suddenly the field was swamped by Skull Knight #2, forcing Yugi's friends to defend themselves from all angles. A lot of them ended up on their dragons as it was the safest place to be, since it was difficult to target one dragon with a whole wing of them flying together, defending each other.

Unfortunately the fiend's Arm of Regeneration was making it difficult for their ground based monsters to destroy their targets, while the Arms of Entrapment and Destruction were slowly picking off their numbers.

For Yugi, who had sent all his other monsters to help the others and now stood, facing the fiend alone as the others fought off Skull Knights, the problem he was having was that the Seven-Armed fiend knew every move he was going to make before he could make it and he had been swatted back more then a few times.

The Arm of Clairvoyance was seeing to that.

By now he was more then aware that hitting the floor, or a roof, at high speed hurt.

A lot.

"You can't win as long as I can read your mind!" Alexandros crowed.

An idea hit Yugi, who glanced at Yami, who was ground bound and had Joey, who had chosen to stay by Yami's side, to back him up, passing a single thought along the link. Yami's nod was all the permission Yugi needed.

He launched an attack.

Alexandros chuckled as he tried to read Yugi's mind.

Only to find himself lost within the depths of the Puzzle, unable to find his way out, unable to break free…

Yugi destroyed the Seven-Armed Fiend and when it exploded, it took the Skull Knights with it, depositing the monsters that had been sacrificed back on the field.

"How? How did you do that?" The rather annoyed Roman King demanded of the Shadow Prince, having been ejected from the Puzzle upon his fiend's destruction. Yugi just smiled slightly as his friends' monsters started picking themselves up, refusing to say, in case he needed to do it again.

He had forgotten that his mind was linked to the Puzzle as well as to Yami and Harry, until that point, and he thanked the Gods that it was.

This was far from over though, he still needed to get through the laser defences he had so badly underestimated the last time he had tried to attack Reshef, he was sure there was a weak point in the armour somewhere, but coming at it from above had been a complete failure…

"It's time you stopped hiding, and faced me in battle!" Yugi demanded of Alexandros, who gave him a rather impressive death glare, "If you want your precious reward, you're coming to have to prove you deserve it by defeating me!"

"Yugi…" He heard Serenity's concerned call as Reshef started firing again, but it was what Yugi had been aiming for, not only getting him to fire so Yugi could see where the open spots where, but getting Alexandros to aim for him only.

Yugi had to dart backwards to avoid being blown up, but then was able to dart between lasers, alongside Magician of Black Chaos and Celtic Guardian, and find the weak point, at the centre of the armour, directly below where Alexandros was fused into a seat in Reshef's head.

Yugi and Magician of Black Chaos took off, while Celtic Guardian jumped, the three of them striking direct blows to the King, to go with the one Yugi had managed earlier before he'd been blasted back by the lasers, that left Alexandros both in pain and pissed off, while the lasers that had been constantly firing since Yugi's challenge, suddenly shut off.

Yugi pulled back, as once again Alexandros sacrificed the monsters that his vassals had left, to power up his armour. The fists detached, one propelled by a red ball of light, one propelled by a blue light and the upper torso started floating, the lower body kept separate by a ball of yellow light that hovered between the two.

This couldn't be good.

Yugi took a moment to total up his side's monsters.

Yami still had Magician of Black Chaos, but it looked like Black Luster Solider was gone, along with Hinotama Soul and King's Knight.

He still had Kuriboh in it's capsule, and Celtic Guardian out while his Gaia the Fierce Knight was over with Serenity, who was taking this opportune moment to heal Seto, whose Blue Eyes White Dragon was hovering protectively nearby, using Ancient Fairy Dragon's powers, but Mystical Elf and Guardian Angel Joan were nowhere in sight.

Joey only had Red Eyes Black Dragon, Yugi's Grandfather still had Curse of Dragon and Ombre was down to her Hieracosphinx, which didn't look too amused by the situation.

Yugi wasn't sure how he'd managed to retain so many of his monsters, while everyone else was down to just one, perhaps it was because the enemy was much more interested in taking him down directly instead of his monsters.

The fists shot away from the armour with no warning, causing the group have to scatter. The blue one following Yugi, who turned around and blasted it, while the red one made the mistake of gunning for Blue Eyes who just fired a White Lightening Attack at it.

Blue lightning played around both fists, as Red Eyes got a shot in on the main body.

Alexandros's goons screamed in pain as the fists shot past their targets and into the sky.

"That's weird…" Joey's voice was easily heard, "When we attack Alexandros, his guys take all the damage…"

"Human shields…" Serenity sounded horrified.

"Prince Yugi." Alexandros sounded far too amused as his voice echoed over the battlefield, "Are you beginning to understand the proper way for a King to unitise his underlings? You should thank me for the lesson."

"You couldn't be more wrong." Yami protested angrily, "A true King respects his subjects."

"YAMI!" The Pharaoh's Magician of Black Chaos exploded on contact with the fist of Reshef that had swooped in behind them, having tried to stop the incoming attack and Yugi didn't have time to react before Yami was knocked from the roof that his Magician had forced him to retreat to when he'd been under direct attack, hitting the floor hard.

The Pharaoh didn't rise…

"Yami!" Yugi shot forward but was blocked from going to Yami's side by the second fist swooping in.

"You see? You'll end up like him if you listen to his nonsense. See what happens when you harp on about such ridiculous concepts as honour and respect?" Alexandros chuckled, causing Yugi to glower at him.

"You're wrong." Yugi snarled, trying to distract Alexandros long enough for Serenity to get to Yami's side. "Honour and respect is what makes a King great. Without them he's nothing but a tyrant!"

"Yugi, look out!" Yugi wheeled around at Joey's call, managing to dodge the first attack, but he was struck down by the second, sent flying into a wall hard enough to break through it.

"A Prince who refuses to learn how to properly use his men, shouldn't have the chance to command any." Alexandros laughed, directing the fists still flying around to strike the others down before Yugi could pick himself out of the rubble.

"I… won't let you…" Yugi pulled himself out of the rubble, injuries as painful as they were obvious, as, job done, the fists returned to Reshef and a huge ball of multicoloured crackling energy grew between them. "I won't let you hurt them anymore!"

Yugi deliberately defused himself, separating back into Yugi and Sunset Magician, the latter of whom stood in front of his Grandfather. At a look from Yugi, Gaia put himself between Joey and the huge fiend that was readying an attack and Celtic Guardian stood guard over Serenity.

Yugi then released Kuriboh, who protested for a moment, then stood over Ombre, to protect her.

Yugi hesitated as he realised he couldn't protect Yami and Seto himself…

Blue Eyes, too injured to fly, raised her head, turning to look at Yugi for a moment, before curling her tail around her chosen human.

Yami opened his eyes as Yugi thanked Blue Eyes and put himself in front of Yami with a determined glare at Alexandros.

He could hear Yugi's thoughts, felt some of Yugi's pain, the hikari wasn't trying to hide either, as he thought Yami unconscious.

Yugi was thinking about how if he didn't shield them, his family would all be killed and there was no way he was letting that happen.

Wasn't Yugi aware that if he was unable to fight any longer, they'd all lose too?

That even if they were released from this game upon his… defeat, Alexandros would take over the world?

That if Yugi sacrificed himself again, Yami would never forgive himself?

Yami's anguish caused Yugi to look over his shoulder for a moment, a small, attempting to be, reassuring smile, on his face before he turned to face his enemy again.

"What's this? The Shadow Prince has given up his own protection to save his friends?" Alexandros sounded far too amused by this fact. "A true King would never value the lives of his servants over his own!"

"I hate to admit it Yuge, but he may have a point." Joey said, slowly getting up, every movement an effort.

"Yugi, take back your monsters." Yami begged, pushing himself to his hands and knees and staring at the hikari, who was stood, arms spread wide, in front of him, ready to take the blast himself to protect his dark side.

"No." Though his stance told them nothing, the emotions surging through the link and Yugi's tone of voice revealed just how frightened he was, "I can't."

"You've got bigger things to worry about, so don't worry about us." Ombre tried to reason with Yugi, right hand hugging left side, pain obvious.

"Stop it." Yugi cringed, "You're wrong. I can't… I won't…"

"Listen to reason, if you don't save yourself then we all lose." Solomon growled at his Grandson, having feared it would come to something like this. "Now take your monsters back."

"No."

"Idiot." Seto grumbled under his breath, well aware Yugi was not going to move, no matter how much his friends pleaded, but as aware as the others that if he didn't they were going to lose.

"You have to win, no matter what happens to us." Serenity tried.

Yugi wheeled around, stance suddenly turning angry; posture reflected in his voice, "Look guys, I'd never abandon you, no matter what the cost."

"Yugi, please!" Yami protested.

"Never."

"Fine." Alexandros smirked, Yugi wheeled around to face him the moment he started speaking, "I have given you more then enough opportunities to prove that you have what it takes to deserve the throne that you're supposed to be ascending to," The armour that he was sat in spread it's hand, the ball of energy inside growing larger, easily big enough to wipe out all of Yugi's monsters in one fell swoop, "But no, you insist on putting the lives of your minions above your own! And for that, you shall pay!"

Alexandros fired.


	11. Unity

"YUGI!" Yami bellowed as the attack blinded everyone, his voice echoed by the others.

The light died down, the attack over.

Yami, still flash blinded, forced himself to his feet, unable to sense Yugi through the weird energy that was flowing in the area now, "Yugi!"

"I'm ok."

Yami blinked until his vision was clear. Yugi was still in front of him, conscious and still in one piece, one arm outstretched, the last sparks of the attack dying in his hand, but that wasn't what rendered Yami speechless, it was Yugi's armour and the white light that danced around his hikari that did that.

"What…?" He heard Serenity gasp.

"He's merged with our dragons…all of our dragons…" Joey stared.

Yami took in the whitish blue and black torso armour and wings, the blue gauntlets and grieves with the lace like white pattern, the dragon head capsule launcher which looked surprisingly like Curse of Dragon…

Yami felt the young man's relief that the others were still here, and his amusement at Yami's shock, then felt Yugi's emotions turn to anger at Alexandros the Great, anger that burnt hot and bright. If Hermione was there, she would have likened it to the flames you get from magnesium, it would burn out quickly, but it was incredibly dangerous.

"No, this…can't be happening!" Alexandros protested.

"Don't attack them again." Yugi's tone stunned everyone, the power behind the single sentence obvious, with only a hint of the anger he was feeling escaping.

Alexandros had pushed Yugi too far, tried to wipe out his friends and family, and with his new armour, Yugi had the power to stop him from trying again.

Still, even in the mood he was in, he would give the Roman King a chance to back down, to admit defeat, or even allow a one on one battle, instead of involving his friends.

"Why not?" Alexandros didn't take the warning and fired again.

Yugi didn't respond other then to block the attack easily, as he had the last one.

' _Maybe it's time…'_ The thought crossed Yami's mind as he watched Yugi shrug off the attack as if it was nothing.

"This can't be!" Alexandros bellowed as Yugi took off, confused and angry by this sudden turn around. He had been in control of the battle! He should have won! How? How had Prince Yugi turned it around like this? "How can you survive my mightiest attack without a scratch?" He demanded.

"Using the Armour of Unity." Yugi explained, tone heated, anger still burning brightly and reflected in the movement of the light that surrounded him. "I wouldn't have survived had my friends not helped me."

Anger died down slightly, and for a couple of moments Yugi gained a small, sad smile, as he looked at those who followed Alexandros. "I have to end this; I can't let you hurt anyone else. Not even your own people." He said, before turning back to look at Reshef and the person merged with the massive monster. "It's over, Alexandros."

"You can't do this to me! I am the true king!" Alexandros launched the fists of Reshef.

Yugi almost vanished in the glow that surrounded him, which formed a dragon, flying straight through the fists, which exploded upon contact, leaving Alexandros completely defenceless.

Yami thought, over the link, he heard Yugi call, _"Dragonforce Attack!"_

Then Reshef exploded, Alexandros's screams were heard and the world went incredibly bright and once again they were all blinded.

When the light died, they were floating in the night sky again.

"What's going on?" Serenity asked.

Yami floated over to Yugi, who smiled slightly, relieved by the fact everyone was ok, "We won." Yami told her, "But there might be something else we need to do."

Shadi appeared him front of them. "Your final test is complete. The battle to decide who is more worthy of the power to control mankind is over. King Alexandros chose to sacrifice his allies in order to gain strength, while Prince Yugi sought to protect his allies, even at the cost of his victory, this difference is what decided their fates." Shadi's eyes flickered to the pair and Yami tensed up, wondering why they hadn't been set free if the final test was over. "Prince Yugi has proven that he has what is necessary to rule wisely and fairly as the True King." A ball of energy floated above Shadi's palm. "This belongs to you," Shadi offered it to Yugi, "Simply put, it contains the power necessary to rule the entire world."

"Thank you Shadi," Yugi replied, still, just wanting to take his friends and leave, "But I don't want it, I don't have any use for it."

"I realise that," Shadi looked amused, for some odd reason, "The paradox of the true king is that he who is worthy of the power to unite mankind, can do so without it." Shadi vanished and once again they were all blinded.

* * *

"Seto, Seto wake up."

The panic in Mokuba's voice woke Seto faster then any spell could of, forcing the exhausted and injured CEO to sit up quickly, if only to try and find the danger to his brother and stop it being one.

When there was no one else in the room, just the unconscious forms of everyone who had actually been living during that final battle, including Alexander Brisbane, Seto turned to his brother with a slight frown, "Are you alright Mokie?" He asked.

He would have checked, just to reassure himself, but Mokuba had glomped him before he could do so, causing Seto to wince but manage to avoid actually making any noise as his little brother squeezed his, possibly bruised, ribs a little too hard. "Mokie?"

"I thought… Shadi said…"

"Shadi?" Seto scowled as Joey started moving. By the time Joey had reassured himself of his sister's safety, Solomon was up and checking Yugi and Yami over. "Did he hurt you?"

"No," Mokuba shook his head, "But the entire B Party had to be taken down to Ground Control, I don't know what he did, but they're all unconscious…"

Yugi groaned, sitting up and looking like he'd been dragged through a hedge backwards, forwards, sideways, upside down and a few other ways that Seto didn't care to think about right now, and had to be assured of his friends' safety before he would turn and converse with the ghost of Alexander the Great, who now appeared much saner then he had during the battle, and actually had a conversation with Yami without trying to kill him.

Seto watched for a moment as both the conversing ancients, Yami and Alexandros, seemed to gain an Ancient Egyptian look, Yami's tan deepening, the image of Egyptian clothes settling, seeming to cause the normal clothes Yami was wearing to vanish, while Alexandros's Roman clothes faded and fancy Egyptian ones took their place.

The difference in styles was startling, but it was more then obvious that both had been Pharaohs…

The change was there for just a moment and Yugi and Yami seemed oblivious, so maybe it was just him seeing things but…

"And a member of party A is missing in that map room…" Mokuba continued as King Alexandros and his vassals faded away.

Serenity, who had been checking Dr Brisbane over with Ombre's help, groaned. "Does this mean someone has to go into the game and get them?"

"I'll do it." Yugi said, or started to…

"No you will not." Seto snarled at him. "I'm going to deal with this 'Shadi' character and make him undo whatever he did to my people, and then I'm going in there and getting him out."

"But Seto…" Yugi started protesting.

"You need to see a healer." Seto glowered at him.

"I'm fine!" Yugi continued protesting, though there wasn't a single person there who believed him.

Serenity cast a diagnostic spell on Yugi, who lit up like a Christmas tree in many different colours. "How are you even conscious?" She demanded, staring at the lights.

"Someone takes after their dark side and other link partner too much." Joey snorted.

"We have healers." Mokuba told them, wondering what all the lights meant. "We brought some with us, just in case."

"I'm coming with you." Yugi told Seto.

"You can't come with me now, you're a liability." Seto told him.

"You can't go in alone."

"He won't. I'm not too bad off." Joey said, looking at Seto, "If Rich Boy doesn't object, I'll go back in with him. At least I know what we have to do."

"You are all going to the healers first." Serenity growled. "Including you Kaiba."

"I have…"

"Healer. Now."

Yami helped Yugi to his feet, the hikari leaning heavily on his dark half as they headed down. Seto, and of course Mokuba, who was now refusing to leave his brother's side, went down to the map room, where A Group and D Group who had been trying to work out where the missing member had gone, were now trying to work out where the missing member had come from, since they had come back looking like they'd been run over by a bull and by all accounts that wasn't far off, apparently he'd been chased by a Battle Ox for the last few hours… except he hadn't been gone hours… and told them to pack up and go, because they were leaving.

Once out and safely at Ground Control, Yugi, unable to fight it any longer, finally passed out. Seto, knowing how tired and injured Yami and Joey were, would have carried him the rest of the way to the medical tent, but within a few seconds of Yugi collapsing, they were swarmed by Healers, who insisted on shooing away everyone until they had treated their patients.

Within the medical tent, where the healers worked quickly and efficiently, and which had had a silencing charm cast on it as well as several others, to make the working space bigger, to prevent disruption from the outside world and to protect those inside, no one was aware of the fact that the pyramid had collapsed until a fully healed Seto Kaiba was called outside by Roland to have this fact pointed out to him.

Inside the tent the Mediwitches and the Doctor were busy treating their patients, giving potions, casting spells, Serenity, who had escaped the worst of the fighting, other then when she'd been hit out of the sky, and even then Fae had taken the worst of the damage, giving them a hand, helping out as a Mediwitch treated what she could with spells and potions, then the Doctor took a look and finished it off with whatever Muggle medicine or treatments were necessary.

"How is he?" Yami asked Serenity, who had stopped for a moment, waiting for the next bit of advice or the next thing she needed to do, concerned after Serenity's outburst by the door.

"Yugi'll be ok," Serenity reassured him, looking down at the other end of the tent, where the Doctor and a Mediwitch were fussing over a completely unconscious Yugi, "I don't know how he kept going so long, but if he hadn't…"

Yami knew what she meant. Joey had joked that Yugi was too much like him and Harry, but Yami had been able to sense just how much pain Yugi had been in by the end, hell it had hit that level where he had been feeling part of it himself, and still his hikari kept going, through the worst of what the game could throw at him.

He had defeated a Five God Dragon with relative ease…

"Are you feeling alright?" Serenity asked, checking his temperature.

"I will do." Yami said, not taking his eyes off of his hikari.

"I swear he's going to be okay." Serenity promised, then turned to scold her brother who had been trying to get out of bed.

Yami just sat there for a while, watching the Healers work as Joey explained what had happened to Mokuba.

There was no sense of victory. Oh he felt pride at his hikari's accomplishments, of course, but… Yami couldn't help but feel like all he had actually done to help his hikari was play at being a rechargeable battery.

Mokuba's phone rang.

* * *

Sirius knew something had happened the moment that Wolf had turned towards the east, and Harry had gained a small grin. He wasn't one hundred percent sure if it was because of what he had drawn, or if it was because of something else, especially when Harry schooled himself back into game mode a moment later.

Sirius didn't understand everything, but he did understand the game better now then he had when he'd watched Harry, Yugi and Yami play against each other before they'd gone their separate ways for the holidays and when Harry finished the match with a combination of his Winged Wolf Pack and Phoenix Heart, he would have offered a congratulations, knowing the turn around for what it had been, except Harry seemed happier then now then he had been for a while.

"Harry?" Sirius asked, as they moved towards the boards to find out who Harry would be fighting next and where and Dudley turned back to his portable games console, bored now he didn't have the match to distract him.

"They're back." Harry's reply was breathless and delivered with a grin.

Sirius got it immediately. "Back? You're sure?"

"Of course I'm sure!" Harry quickly looked around, decided that there was no one in hearing range and continued, "It's them, I know it's them…I can sense them again!"

"You thought you sensed them before your match started, then they were gone again." Sirius warned.

"I know, I know." Harry waved him off, his good mood wavering.

"Can't you just phone a Kaiba?" Dudley asked, looking up from his ever so fascinating game for a few milliseconds. "And find out?"

A split second later Harry had his phone out and had dialled the number for Mokuba Kaiba.

It was on speed dial, so it took a grand total of the press of two buttons.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up…" Harry muttered as it rang.

Sirius watched his Godson as he moved across to the railings surrounding the pond, talking in rapid Japanese to someone on the other end of the phone.

Sirius had to admit that he didn't like it. It wasn't right for someone who wasn't a twin to be bound to the mind of another, and Harry had changed so much over the last year, since the year he'd hung around the Hogwarts grounds as a dog that Sirius wasn't sure how well he knew this boy.

In all fairness he hadn't had the chance to get to know Harry properly before the link, but Sirius was fed up of knowing that he couldn't compete with the other two link partners, knowing that Harry would have up and left had Sirius not come to an agreement with him about how long to wait…

And now, watching the relief that was obviously coursing through his Godson as Harry nodded and uh huhed and 'at least they're back and safe'ed his way through the conversation, promising to phone a little later so whoever he was talking to could get themselves checked over, he couldn't help feeling bitter that he would never have the relationship that he would have wanted had Wormtail not betrayed the Potters, with his Godson.

Harry put the phone back in his pocket and sat down on a nearby bench, turning to watch the screen, letting out a relieved sigh.

"Well?" Dudley poked Harry and backed off when Wolf growled lightly.

"They're back, they passed through the real world to get to the last battle, but they're back for real now. They just need some medical attention."

"Good." With that Dudley lost interest in the conversation, amusing Harry.

"What's wrong?" Sirius asked when Harry looked thoughtful for a while, wondering if it was just the tournament, or whether there had been some news Harry hadn't shared with them.

"Nothing, it's just…" Harry sighed, a small frown crossing his features for a moment or two before disappearing.

"What?" Sirius asked.

"Yugi saved the world."

"I thought that wasn't unusual?" Dudley looked up for the grand total of half a second.

"Yami saving the world isn't unusual;" Harry explained, "But it was Yugi who saved it, and Yami's claiming that he didn't help Yugi at all."

"So?"

Harry shrugged, knowing Sirius wouldn't get it. Perhaps it wasn't as big a deal as he thought it was, but… something was going to change because of this, he just knew it.

He just wasn't sure what at this moment of time.

* * *

Seto exited the medical tent a few hours later to find Yami looking at the ruins of the pyramid. He was surprised, considering Yugi was still inside and currently banned from leaving his bed for the next couple of days.

"Yami?"

Yami jumped and wheeled around to face him, causing Seto to be both concerned and curious at the same time.

It was very difficult to catch Yami by surprise. The teen was always on alert and completely aware of his surroundings. He was only ever caught off guard when he was completely lost in thought and that didn't happen very often. Even when important subjects came up, there was a part of Yami that was watching and analyzing everyone around him.

With Yugi in the medical tent, Seto would have thought that Yami would be in there, watching and guarding his partner, not out here, so lost in thought that just calling his name made him jump.

"What do you want?" There was a snap to Yami's tone that told Seto that it had been a rather important train of thoughts he had just caused to go diving off of a cliff.

Seto wasn't quite sure how to answer. If it had been Yugi, he could have just asked what had been on his mind, and Yugi probably would have given him a straight answer, but he and Yami had never really been on those sorts of terms.

Then again Yugi was that open with anyone who he considered a friend that he could trust with his secrets, which was pretty much everyone. No one betrayed Yugi, it was something to do with how Yugi was. There was something about him that stopped people from doing so, something that bonded groups together.

Unity… the armour he'd gained had been the Armour of Unity… maybe that was Yugi's gift…

"You looked completely out of it." Seto settled on saying, "I didn't want my biggest rival surviving that Shadow Game, only to kill himself by accidently falling over a cliff."

"It's nothing." Yami waved it off.

It was nothing. Yeah right, and Seto was in line to be the next Minister for Magic for England.

Seto snorted. "Nothing? Yugi takes over your bit, and you call that nothing?"

Yami's eyes darkened and a small frown told Seto he'd hit the nail on the head. "I didn't get a say in the matter."

"Why?" Seto asked.

Yami preferred to be at the head of the group, probably a left over from his days on the throne. Yami didn't like following someone else's orders, not even Yugi's. The fact it had been Yugi on point, automatically meant that Yami would have had some say in the matter. Things weren't adding up.

"The game chose him." Yami replied shortly.

"The Shadows wanted Yugi to save the world?"

"It was a test." Yami explained, "To find the True King."

Seto raised an eyebrow. "And that's not you."

"Obviously not." Yami replied. "Obviously the Shadows think Yugi's ready for the throne and I should move aside."

Seto shrugged. "Maybe the Shadows think you're getting too old."

Yami snorted. "Maybe. I am what, 5022?"

"5014." Seto replied, "You're Harry's age physically, remember?"

"Harry's fifteen." Yami replied.

"Your birthday's not till the end of the summer." Seto answered back.

Yami didn't retort.

For a moment there was silence then.

"He did a good job." Yami said, "He got us all out safely, won the game, beat Alexandros, who has thousands of years more experience then he does…" Yami shook his head, amused at himself, "I've been blind haven't I?"

"What?" Seto asked, though he had a feeling Yami was talking to himself, rather then him.

"Yugi doesn't need me anymore, does he?" Yami asked, "He's more then capable of looking after himself and the others."

Seto laughed, and laughed, and laughed. Yami looked deeply offended.

"Sorry." Seto smirked, "Maybe. But... Yugi? Capable of looking after himself?" Seto chuckled, "He might be able of looking after everyone else, but he fails epically at looking after himself."

Yami scowled at him.

"Who is the only one out of the lot of you who needs more then five hours with the doctors?" Seto pointed out and smirked when Yami had to concede that he had a point. "There's an easy answer to your problem. Move aside and let Yugi take over, but keep an eye on things in the background. He can look after the others, and you can look after him. Simple."

Yami snorted. "That easy, huh?"

"It's either that or keep sulking until you drive everyone crazy." Seto pointed out.

"I wasn't sulking." Yami growled.

"So what does Yugi want to do?"

"Yugi wants to help his friends out and go back to Hogwarts in September. He also wants Yami to chase what Yami wants and not worry about him all the time."

Yugi's voice in the doorway made the pair of them turn around.

"You're not supposed to be out of bed." Yami darted to Yugi's side.

"You were distressed." Yugi replied, "And the Doctors weren't looking."

"I'm fine." Yami replied, well aware Yugi was just proving Seto's point about Yugi looking after others and not caring for his own welfare. "Go back to bed."

"You're not fine." Yugi shook his head.

"More fine then you. Bed. Now."

Seto gave the two of them an amused look, then manhandled Yami into the tent, taking Yugi with them.

"Muto Yugi." Serenity growled the moment they were inside.

"Uhhh, sorry?" Yugi tried, wondering again if all healers took lessons on being scary.

"Bed." Serenity pointed.

"Going." Yugi surrendered.

' _Yugi,'_ Yami waited until Yugi was settled in bed again, before initiating a conversation over the link, _'Would you mind if, when we get back to Domino…'_

" _You want to go to the museum."_ Yugi already knew what he was going to ask, having had expected it to come up at some point over the holiday. Yami had been firm while the Tablet of the Pharaoh had been out of his reach, but his resolve had been wavering the entire week before they had left, when it had been in Domino's museum.

' _Yes…'_

" _What I said outside is the truth. If you want to chase your memories, I won't stop you."_

' _You don't mind?'_

" _You've been after getting all of your old memories back for years. You've held back on my account long enough. If you want to go, go."_

' _Thank you.'_

Yugi smiled at him, _"You don't need to thank me. Everything you've done has been to get to this point. It wasn't the battle against Great Evil which dragged you into Battle City."_

Yugi sensed Yami's amusement and his smile broadened. When Yami had first met Isuzu, at the museum when he'd been on the date with Tea that Yugi had arranged for him, Isuzu had told him that there was a great evil on the way that would attempt to destroy the world and that it was his destiny to defeat it.

This he had accepted. There had to have been a reason that he'd sealed himself away, split himself into two as he had in order to return to life at some point in the future, perhaps this had been it.

But it was Isuzu's parting shot, the simple statement that if he entered the tournament, he would find the answers he sought out, the secrets behind his former identity… that was what had truly dragged him and Yugi into Battle City.

Mokuba's phone rang again, amusing everyone and causing Seto to have to stop himself from rolling his eyes. He was thoroughly sick of that ringtone by now.

"Hermione, hi." Mokuba said, shushing everyone.

"How many phone calls has he had since we've been gone?" Yugi whispered to Seto, having caught the CEO's momentary slip.

"He started it. The others made him promise to ring if something went wrong this summer." He stated, his tone sounding like as if it was a 'when' not an 'if', "Let's just say if I hear that ringtone one more time I might do something drastic with that phone." Seto's grumbling made Yugi laugh, Yami smirk, Serenity giggle, Ombre smile slightly and Joey snort in amusement.

"So… Seto…" Joey paused, "Our holiday…?"

Seto gave Joey an amused smirk. "I told the hotel you would be hiking in before I left Kaiba Corp." He answered, "It's only eight hundred and forty two kilometres from here."

"What?" Joey demanded, glowering. "You can't be serious!"

"He's not. We're taking you to the hotel once the doctors say you're ok to be released and coming to get you in the plane on the 29th" Mokuba waved it off, shushing them again. "When?" He asked into the phone.

" _I feel like we're in the library."_ Yugi giggled at Yami, who snorted and nodded slightly.

Mokuba put the phone down and turned to the others, "Guess who's coming to Japan on the 29th?"

"She's not?" Ombre asked, eyes widening.

"Uh huh." Mokuba nodded, "Her parents have arranged a holiday to coincide with your return from India. Apparently they arranged it when she got worried when you lot disappeared. Again."

Joey watched as Yugi and Yami looked at each other. Yugi tilted his head questioningly. Yami shrugged. Yugi gave him a meaningful look, something along the lines of, 'you're sure?' and Yami nodded. Then they turned back to Mokuba who was telling them what Hermione had told him about the planned trip.

He didn't need to 'hear' what they said over the mind link, more often then not, when they didn't watch their physical body language. It was often possible to work out the basics of what they were saying from how they responded to each other. He'd get the details, if they were important, from Yuge later.

"Are they getting in before or after us?" Serenity asked.

"Actually around the same time," Mokuba had already worked it out in his head, "But Hermione will probably be jet lagged, England's nine hours behind us."

"Gives us a chance to unpack and tidy up a bit then." Ombre nodded.

Yugi was more worried about the fact that Hermione's parents could be expecting to run into a group of fourteen or fifteen year olds, rather then a bunch of early twenty year olds.

"So what do we do until the doctors release us?" Joey asked, bored already.

"Well I would duel you but… that reminds me." Yami headed for the exit.

"Yami." Yami paused when Seto called him.

"What?"

"Looking for this?" Seto held up Mahado's card.

"That's mine." Yami stalked towards him.

"I don't think you deserve it." Seto smirked, a teasing, deliberately irritating smirk, designed specifically to lure the Pharaoh into biting back, "If you were careless enough to lose it, perhaps I should keep it."

"Don't even think about it." Yami growled.

"That's our card." Yugi protested as Solomon watched warily. "Grandpa gave him to us to look after."

"Actually, if I remember it correctly Yuge," Joey intervened, also watching, "Gramps gave you that card to beat Rich Boy with."

"That's true." Yugi acknowledged. "Considering everything, I think the result of that duel was a good one."

Seto snorted, "You beat me with Exodia. It was a cheap win. You can't beat Exodia."

"We beat Exodia." Yami reminded him.

"And you beat Exodia Necross." Yugi reminded Seto.

Seto waved it off.

"Card?" Yami held out a hand.

"Play me for it." Seto replied, smirk back.

"I won't duel you for my card." Yami growled. "Give it back."

Seto paused, as if he was seriously considering not giving it back. The tossed it to Yami. "You're not worth my time without him in your deck."

"What did you say?" Yami snarled.

"You heard me." Seto replied, completely unconcerned that he had a rather angry Pharaoh in front of him. "You're no challenge without your trump card."

"You're on." Yami glowered, "Any time, any place."

"Hotel courtyard, when we drop you off."

"All right." Yami nodded, "I'm not going to lose."

"And you're not allowed to use Yugi's deck." Seto warned.

"I don't need to borrow a deck to defeat you without the Dark Magician, Kaiba."

Seto just smirked in response to Yami's growl. He knew he was pushing all the right buttons, because Yami was more prone to reverting to using surnames when people wound him up.

"You were going to explain why the two of you used the same deck and how that's both your card." Serenity mentioned quietly, breaking the mood that was hovering around. "Because that was your card, long before it was Yami's." She gave Yugi a confused look.

"We were going to swap stories." Yugi nodded, looking around and glad that the doctors had vanished for the time being.

"Can I go first?" Serenity asked, pulling her deck out of her bag and taking her Extras deck out of her deck box, passing around Fae's card.

"Go ahead. You said she chose you?"

"Her name's Fae, she an Ancient Fairy Dragon," Serenity nodded, watching the card as it went from person to person, "Apparently she fought a great battle hundreds of years ago, somewhere around the time of the Incas and while the others escaped, she was trapped in the Monster World by the bad guys."

"Wow," Joey passed the card on to Yugi, who took it carefully. "So how'd you end up with her loyalty? Don't tell me you've got your own bad guys to contend with."

Serenity giggled as Yugi and Yami's heads turned towards her, concern obvious. "No, I'm just a temporary partner; I'm not really the one she's waiting for."

"What do you mean?" Yami asked as Yugi passed him Ancient Fairy Dragon's card.

"Well, Fae and I have come to an agreement." Serenity said, smiling slightly, "She'll work with me for a while, so she isn't stuck in the Monster World, bored out of her mind, and if her real partner, the one she's waiting for, appears, I've promised to let her go so she can team up with her true partner and save the world again."

"Save the world again?" Yugi asked.

"Another villain group?" Yami scowled.

"Fae doesn't think the bad guys will be back in my life time." Serenity tried to reassure them, "It's not something we should have to worry about."

"Still…" Yugi sighed and passed the card onto Ombre.

"Well, here's one piece of good news, Yuge." Joey said, thinking. "This means that it's not only you who has trouble with idiots."

"He has a point." Ombre gave the card back to Serenity. "This means that there's a lot more dangers out there that are related to duelling then just our problems."

"Why don't I feel reassured by this?" Yami growled.

Serenity giggled again, as Ombre sighed and Joey shook his head, amused.

"How did you meet her?"

"I was in the hospital wing after an accident in potions and I thought the potion that Dr. Ling gave me had been tainted, as I had odd dreams." Serenity smiled softly, remembering the dreams and everyone she had befriended in them, "It wasn't until my friends went through my extras deck that I realised that I had an extra card."

"You mean she just appeared in your extras deck?" Joey asked, concerned.

"I didn't think I'd seen an Ancient Fairy Dragon before." Seto frowned slightly, chalking this up to 'insane things happen when magic is involved' when Serenity nodded. He had spent more then a few moments just staring at the card, remembering the full size dragon that had fought beside them, trying to think if he'd seen it before.

"Does this mean she wouldn't work on a Duel Disk?" Yugi frowned.

"It wouldn't be hard to program the Duel Disks to accept her." Seto waved it off, as if it didn't constitute two or three days of 3D modelling and programming and sending out a broadcast signal to update the Duel Disks already in circulation, with the new data, already thinking about it and wondering if there were other monsters who just appeared in people's decks and how they used them…

Yugi looked thoughtful, making Seto wonder what he was thinking about, but he passed the card back to Joey, who had reached for it before it could reach Serenity, nodding approvingly as he read it again, "Her effect is awesome. I hope you've put some field cards in your deck to compliment her."

"Mountain, The Sanctuary in the Sky and Holy Sanctuary." Serenity nodded.

Those three field cards told Seto everything he needed to know about her deck. Dragons, fairies and light. Probably light Syncro's, it was unlikely that 'Fae' would be the only Syncro in her deck. It wasn't good for strategy to rely on one monster.

"Cool." Joey handed the card back and Serenity slipped it into her deck box before looking at Yugi.

"So what about you?" She asked, "What is it with you and Yami?"

Yugi nodded, surprisingly nervous about telling her, considering that everyone they had told so far hadn't been too put off. "This is going to seem a little far fetched to start with, but all of it is true. Ok?"

"Alright…"

"You remember what I told you at Christmas? About Yami and Ombre's magic being linked to their items?"

"Uh huh." Serenity nodded.

"That's not quite the full story."

"No?" Serenity looked surprised.

"No. Sorry." Yugi shook his head.

"What is?" She asked, both concerned and interested.

Yugi paused, taking a deep breath. "Yami and I am the same person." Yugi explained nervously, "Two halves of the same soul."

"What do you mean?" She asked, confused.

"Yami was a Pharaoh five thousand years ago," Yugi looked at his partner, causing Serenity to do the same. The Pharaoh nodded and Yugi continued. "There was this huge evil that attacked Egypt, and Yami sealed his soul and gave up his memories in order to seal the evil away too, but for some reason only half of his soul was sealed into the Puzzle. The other half went on to reincarnate and well..." He gestured himself with a sheepish smile. "I freed Yami when I completed the Puzzle, and we've looked after each other ever since."

"But if it was you who reincarnated, how did Yami get his own body?"

"For a long time we shared one." Yugi explained, "Yami possessed me whenever he needed to be out an about. I never minded, still wouldn't, but there was an accident back in our first year and when the magic from the Millennium Items, the magic of the Orb of Light which Ombre holds and a burst of Wand magic mixed together and gave Yami, Bakura and Ombre their own bodies."

"Constructs." Serenity's eyes widened, "Your bodies are magical constructs?" She asked Yami and Ombre.

Ombre nodded.

"I've never heard someone splitting their soul before." Serenity frowned, she looked at Ombre, "Was Kari half of your soul too?"

"No." Ombre shook her head. "Kari became whole when her twin died which is what allowed her to free me from the Orb of Light."

"Do you know any of your history?"

"I was a Princess, from a country bordering Egypt, during Yami's reign, other then that, not much." It wasn't a really a lie, she didn't know her personal history, she was still unsure which of the twin Princesses she had been.

Serenity fell silent, looking like she was lost in thought. They let her think things over. There was so much more to the tale then they'd told her, but she'd ask for more information when she was ready.

"I wonder if Boh knows Fae." Yugi wondered out loud. "He gets to know everyone eventually."

"It's a possibility." Joey smiled slightly.

"He's probably annoyed her at some point in his life." Seto commented.

"Not everyone gets as irritated at Boh as you do." Yami smirked.

Seto just glowered, making Yugi and Joey laugh as the Muggle doctor came round and checked them over.

"Mr Kaiba, can I have a word?" The one Muggle doctor he had brought with him asked, nodding towards the tent's exit.

"Certainly."

"And you're all supposed to be resting." The doctor glowered at the others, who settled onto beds and grinned sheepishly.

Once they were settled to his liking, he left the tent and turned to Seto, who was waiting semi-patiently.

"Yes?"

"There are no signs of complications, everyone's wounds have healed to my satisfaction and other then the fact I'm of the professional opinion that they should stay in the tent overnight, I believe they'll be ready to leave."

"You're certain?"

"As much as I can be, considering that the greater majority of their treatment was done using magical methods."

Seto snorted, understanding.

"I would be highly appreciative of a few consultations with your magical healers. I noted a few practises don't require magic, only access to magical items, and which sped up healing exponentially."

"That can be arranged." Seto nodded.

"Thank you Sir." The Doctor re-entered the tent and Seto smiled slightly when he heard the Doctor bellow, "If you don't rest, I'll send everyone else on holiday and make you stay here another week!" Making Seto wonder who exactly the doctor had been shouting at.

Things were going to get interesting, but he had to wonder what was going to change because of what was planned for the future.

"Seto?" Mokuba asked, poking his head out of the tent. "Come and rest."

"I'm ok, Mokie." Seto turned and gave him a small smile, allowing Mokuba to drag him into the tent. Whatever would happen would happen and as long as he kept close tabs on his family, he would know what was happening and be able to help.

And he was Seto Kaiba.

He would be able to handle anything that was thrown at him.


	12. After

Solomon, having returned from India just half an hour ago, watched the scene with surprise.

Customers were gathered outside chatting, or exiting with their purchases when the limousine pulled up outside the Kame Game Shop.

That couldn't be right. The only other set of store keys, not including the set he always carried with him, were those currently locked away in the kitchen, up in the flat.

"Excuse me." He exited the limo, allowing the goons Kaiba had sent with him, to ensure he'd gotten home safely, to take his equipment out of the boot while he pushed his way into the shop to find out what was going on.

A short woman with shoulder length deep red hair and amethyst eyes was taking money, while a tall man with short black hair and brown eyes carried a big box of stock in.

"What's going on here?" He demanded. He knew who they looked like but the pair hadn't been in Japan for more then eight years… not that he hadn't hoped that they would return at some point, but for them to be here, now, without any warning… he was wary.

"Hi Dad." She grinned. "You never did move that spare key."

Solomon stared in disbelief.

"I think we broke him, love." Roland laughed, dumping the box and running a hand through his hair, "We did try and ring in advance but no one was home." He directed to Solomon.

"Aiko? Why are you…?" Solomon asked, more then a little stunned.

"The shop closes in a couple of hours." Aiko answered her father, "We'll explain then, is that ok?"

* * *

They had just been walking past. Or rather Draco was on the verge of storming, and Ryou was wondering how to make it look like he had been hunting Golden, while missing her.

He glanced up, and caught sight of a rather familiar figure, standing in the park they were passing, throwing breadcrumbs to the ducks.

"Draco." He said, causing the younger boy to stop suddenly, and spin around, catching sight of -her-.

She waved. Ryou guessed that Bakura would declare she was smirking at them, if he was here.

"She..." Draco uttered, in complete disbelief.

She walked away, following the path around to a small building, before disappearing through the glass doors.

"Should we follow?" Draco asked.

Ryou considered, then shrugged, "Might as well."

It was a tea shop. A tiny little tea shop, with several elderly couples sitting around, chatting over hot drinks and cakes?

Golden was by the window, sitting at a little round table, with a metal teapot still streaming, and three teacups.

"Unbelievable." Ryou uttered, then cursed himself for sounding rather like Bakura in that instant.

"You know, I'm not allowed to date my students, even if I don't exactly teach you."

Draco's mouth closed up a sudden snap, as if his brain had suddenly caught onto the fact that things weren't going the way he expected.

She raised an eyebrow, and leaned back in her chair. "I hope Bakura got to Japan successfully?"

Ryou sighed, and sat down suddenly. "You know he did."

"Aww... the poor little boys don't like the game as much as their big brother?"

"You enjoyed... Bakura... er?" Draco asked incoherently.

"Now that would be telling." She grinned, taking a sip of her tea, then making a face. "Nee, shop tea just isn't the same. Oh well, enjoy."

And she patted their heads, walking away.

Sharing a glance, they rushed out of the teashop, only to find Golden was no where in sight.

* * *

He was ready.

Or as ready as he was going to be.

Golden was not in Japan. He'd discovered this within hours of landing, but the Tablet of the Pharaoh was.

It was time.

It still held its power, so the Pharaoh hadn't been here yet, but he would, that much was certain.

He had one last shot at this.

One last chance to take everything away from the Pharaoh for what had been done in the past.

One last chance to make him pay.

And he would take it.

He would use this last opportunity to gain what he needed, to seize the Pharaoh's name and break the seal on the Shadows, freeing both the magic and the creatures that rested within the Shadow Realm to cause chaos on Earth.

The game was set, the players would soon arrive and soon the final trial of the Pharaoh would begin.

And this time there would be no hope for the Pharaoh. Bakura would win and the Pharaoh would be gone, forever.

He could leave the chase for Robyn in Ryou and Draco's hands for now. Everything would change the moment he got his hands on the name of the Pharaoh. The Millennium Items were important to his plan, but destroying the Pharaoh and seizing the name which made up the key part of the seal was the most important point of it.

He would not fail.

She'd known what the Pharaoh was planning to do… he would have to thank her, when he caught her…

The board was set.

Now he had to wait and watch.

* * *

Ryou's plan for finding Robyn.

"Look, basically, if she's any good at this seer stuff, she knows where we are going to be, and so far she hasn't exactly been avoiding us, has she? So I say we just go where ever, and she'll turn up."

The next morning, during breakfast at a local cafe, someone dropped by their table.

"Hey, you two guys R and D? A little bird asked me to deliver this to two too blond to be true guys, and you're the only ones I've seen."

"Er... yes? We are Ryou and Draco."

"Damn, your daddy didn't like you much, sticking you with those doozies, did he? Anyway, letter for you from your chick."

"Your plan assumes I find you important enough to follow. Guess what? I'm the mouse kitties."

* * *

India had been great, the sights beautiful, the food good and the hotel lovely. The match between Seto and Yami had been interesting too, but the outcome had been predictable.

India had been fun but it was good to be home.

They collected their bags, went through customs, not that they had anything to announce, and were just heading out the arrivals gate when someone called to them in English.

"Hey, guys! Over here!"

A bushy haired brunette teenager was balanced precariously on the railings surrounding the out gate, grinning and waving at them.

"Hermione, hey!" Yugi grinned and waved back, darting through the crowds to reach her side, while the others went around to Hermione and her parents.

"Hey. I made Mum and Dad wait for you guys. Mokuba told me when you'd be getting in. Mum, Dad, this is Yugi Muto." Hermione introduced him, "Yugi, these are my parents."

"Hello Dr Granger and Dr Granger." Yugi bowed, "It's an honour to meet you."

"You're Yugi Muto?" Dr Gillian Granger, Hemione's mother, asked, a little surprised.

"Yes." Yugi nodded.

"Hello." Dr Adrian Granger, her father, nodded to him, having a dozen questions but knowing better then to ask in public.

"Man Yuge, you were fast." Joey complained, as the others reached the group, "Joey Wheeler, at your service." Joey bowed to Hermione's parents.

"Nice to meet you."

The others introduced themselves as they moved away from the gate and towards the car waiting out front. Getting into a huge limo, which comfortably seated all of them, not including Seto and Mokuba, who had taken a different car back to Kaiba Corp.

"You're more then welcome to come to the Kame Game Shop once you are settled in." Yugi offered when they dropped Hermione and her parents off at the hotel. "I can come and guide you, if you like."

"Thank you. We'll probably do some sight seeing first, then Hermione has your number, doesn't she?" Adrian replied.

Yugi nodded as they collected their cases from the boot.

"We'll see you later then." Adrian nodded and turned towards the hotel.

"Later Yugi." Hermione waved goodbye and the driver left, dropping them off at the game shop a few minutes later.

"Well, that was an interesting start to the summer." Joey commented as they sorted all their bags out and headed through the back door, up to the flat.

"And it's going to get more interesting as the…" Yugi trailed off as he entered the living room, causing the others to worry.

Yami pushed past him, to check for danger, and found a red headed woman watching them. Not the same orangey red of the Weasleys, but a deeper red. He knew this woman, recognised her from Yugi's memories.

"Mum?" Yugi breathed.

"Did he say mum?" Serenity asked, causing Joey to shoot up the stairs, frowning as he got between Yugi and the woman.

"Who are you?" Yami demanded.

"That's an odd question, considering that you're playing at being my other son." She answered, "I think I should be asking who you are."

"I am Muto Yami of the Domino Clan." Yami replied, "Muto Solomon's grandson and Yugi's brother. Who are you?"

"Prewitt Aiko, Muto Solomon's daughter and Yugi's mother." She replied, "My husband and I sent a letter and a crown to Yugi via a pair of friends of ours two Christmas's ago." She scowled at him, "And you're not my son."

That put a new spin on things. Only the gang, Solomon, the two archaeologists who had been in the hospital at the time and Yugi's parents knew about the crown…

"I didn't say I was Yugi's brother by blood." Yami replied, backing down, looking to Yugi who still seemed stunned. "I would like to state, that neither of us ever confirmed the wild rumours surrounding us, and the tale about me being Yugi's brother may be false, but I consider Yugi my brother, and I know he considers the reverse true."

Aiko nodded in understanding.

"Yuge?" Joey questioned.

"I… hi…" He said to his mother.

"It's been a long time, Yugi."

Yugi nodded, nervous. "It's good to see you."

And this was sufficiently awkward enough without a crowd of gawkers, so Serenity ushered the others away, to unpack or make tea.

"Is Dad back too?" Yugi asked.

"Yes, we arrived back while you were in India." Aiko wasn't quite sure what to say to her son after so long, and it was obvious that Yugi felt the same way.

"Did you ever find the guys you were chasing?" Yugi asked finally, his hand resting on the Puzzle.

"Yes, but it was too late, they'd already handed all the information over. There's nothing more we could do. So we came home." She smiled at him, noting the way the others had willingly shooed at the brunette's request, but Yami was hovering in the doorway.

* * *

"Mr Kaiba, the new VR Department Head's here to see you."

Not once, even in Kari's first few days in the job, had his PA forgotten her name, so he had to wonder if this was her way of subtly saying that she didn't approve of the man that had been promoted to fill Kari's shoes.

"Send him in."

Itou Nakano was a good worker, but didn't have the loyalty that Kari had had.

It wasn't only that, Itou just didn't have the force of personality or the skills needed to keep the job for too long, though it hadn't been obvious until they'd returned from India the first time, but this was the third time in a week that he had come to Seto instead of working it out for himself.

"Mr Kaiba." Itou nodded.

"Itou." Kaiba nodded back, wondering what it was this time.

"I quit."

Well that was simple. "Why?" It was pretty obvious why, but he wanted to hear Itou's reasons for himself.

"I cannot fulfil all of the duties that you have assigned to the position that you promoted me to. I would rather quit then be fired." Itou responded, "And since I quit I can tell you this to your face, don't expect the next VR Department Head to be Miss Ironhide either, it's unfair to whoever you promote." And with that Itou Nakano left the building, probably for a job in another games company.

Kaiba growled. So no one could handle Ironhide's job? Fine. He had better split up the responsibilities then if no one person could deal with it. It wasn't like Itou hadn't had the full knowledge of what he was taking on.

He buzzed Mokuba, who darted into the office and gave him a confused look.

"Itou just quit." Mokuba's expression cleared, "I'm splitting up the job."

"What do you need me to do?"

"Go through the personnel files and find me the top workers in the VR Department, while I work out how to split the duties."

"I didn't think it was that unreasonable a job…" Mokuba frowned and pulled up the files on his laptop, settling at the sofa bed and reading through quickly.

Seto didn't reply, already typing up a list of expected work and duties expected to be fulfilled.

"Kari with us for four years, wasn't she?" Mokuba asked.

"Five years, she was department head for four." Seto corrected.

"At the time she was hired, there weren't many who lasted a year." Mokuba sighed, leaving open the files of the people he thought might be able to do the job.

Seto scowled, thinking about how much closer an eye he'd have to keep on things with this kind of set up…

He'd been planning something anyway, but he wouldn't mention it to anyone until this was settled and they had settled what they needed to at the museum.

Suffice to say that the OWLs that Yugi had mentioned a week ago weren't on his list of concerns.

* * *

"You're not going to wait for Harry?" Hermione looked surprised.

"He understands." Yugi replied, leaning on the work surface and drinking his juice slowly, waiting for the kettle to boil and listening to both the rain and the murmur that was the discussion between Hermione's parents and his own… his own… it sounded so weird… he was glad they were home, but everything would change now… there was just so much they didn't know… "The exhibit will be finished in a few days time and we'll lose the chance."

"Can I come?" Hermione asked, interested in finding out more about Yami's past, and in seeing the relics that had been mentioned by her friends so often.

Yugi looked over to Yami.

"If you want to." The Pharaoh shrugged, "I don't know what'll happen. I just know I have to present the God Cards to the Tablet of the Pharaoh and all my questions will be answered."

"I'm sure I could lure my parents into a trip to the museum." Hermione grinned, grabbing the kettle before Yugi could and filling the teapot. "When?"

"Tomorrow?" Yami asked Yugi, wanting to get it over with as quickly as possible.

"Ten o'clock, tomorrow morning?" Yugi asked, knowing that Joey wanted to be there and that if they arranged it for when the museum first opened, Joey wouldn't necessarily be up and Hermione might not have found it.

"Ten's fine." Yami nodded.

"You sure you don't want to come? You might find something about your past." Hermione looked at Ombre.

"I know enough to not feel the need to find out who I am. Besides the only keys to memory at the museum are the ones for Yami's memories." Ombre shrugged it off. If Kari had still been here, she would have gone and played at having gotten her memories back when Yami did, but now she didn't know what to do. Perhaps she would go, but stay out of sight… Kari… why did you have to leave? Why?

"Shame Tea and Tristan are going to miss it." Joey sighed.

"I'm gonna buzz them later." Yugi smiled slightly, "And then again once we've been."

"Is that going to be alright? Don't they want to be here?" Hermione sounded concerned.

"Of course they do. But they can't be, so I'm going to fill them in as best I can." Yugi sighed.

"What a shame."

"It's is but…" Yugi stacked a pair of trays, one with the teapot and some cakes and the other with enough cups and saucers for everyone, "Could I get a hand guys?"

"Let me." Hermione quickly picked up a tray and followed Yugi into the living room.

She was rather glad they had arrived in Japan when they had. Tomorrow would be fascinating and she would not have wanted to miss it for the world. She just felt sorry for those who wouldn't be able to make it.

"Mum, Dad, do you mind going to the museum tomorrow?" Hermione asked. "There's an exhibit on Egypt that is only being shown here and I really want to see it."

"Trust you to find one." Her mother laughed. "I don't think it would be a problem." She looked at Adrian who rolled his eyes.

"Like I ever had a choice in the matter." He snorted, "This holiday was planned and arranged for you Hermione, so whatever you want Princess. I take it that you'll be there tomorrow as well?" He asked Yugi with a shrewd look.

"Me and my brother have something we really want to look at. So we're heading there around tenish." Yugi nodded.

"We'll be there around then." Gillian nodded, amused. She took a sip of the tea and smiled softly, "Who made the tea?"

"I did." Yugi nodded. "But Hermione helped."

"I'll have to let Hermione help more often." She laughed, "It would be nice to have a cup of tea this good once in a while."

"Mum!" Hermione protested as Yugi smiled and everyone else giggled.

Hermione's drank their tea and stood up. "We'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeap." Yugi nodded. "Ten o'clock sharp, on the front steps."

"Anyone who's late has to buy everyone else lunch." Joey joked.

"You can afford to buy people lunch?" Hermione teased as she reached the door.

"I'm not going to be late." Joey replied.

"See you tomorrow then." Hermione grinned and headed down and out.

"So, you think we freaked her parents out enough?" Yami asked, leaning on the wall, amused.

Yugi, however, was giving his own mother a self-conscious smile, as she gave them a speculative look, "From what the Doctor Grangers were telling us, I think there's a lot you still need to tell us." Yugi's mum, who was still sat on the sofa, turned and looked at them.

"What do you want to know?"

Something smashed.

"Get back here!" Joey's bellow could be heard two rooms and a corridor away.

"Joey?" Yami demanded, rushing towards the room he shared with Yugi, and soon Joey too, considering the lack of space that was rapidly becoming apparent in this house.

Joey came barrelling out the door and headed towards the back door. "Someone stole the God cards!"

"What?" Yugi yelped, turning and running for the back door, beating Joey there. "Sorry Mum," He looked bashful. "Hold that thought. I'll be back soon."

He, Yami and Joey left.

* * *

Seto was busy with the last few lines of the new VR department contracts, which was why he didn't notice that Mokuba had been gone for much longer then it took to make hot chocolate until the lights went out.

"Brilliant." Seto scowled at the dead PC, rather glad he'd saved the file he'd been working on just two minutes ago, "Mokuba, could you…?" He trailed off as he looked up, his eyes still adjusting to the darkness, hindered by the thunder and lightening storm going on outside, and realised his brother wasn't in the room.

"Mokuba?" Seto frowned, heading out the door and round to his brother's office, well aware of the kettle and drinks sachets Mokuba kept safely hidden away in a cupboard, "Are you alright?"

There was no one around.

He knew their PAs had gone home hours ago, upon their enquiry as to whether they would be needed to work late tonight, Seto had distractedly waved them off with a 'we don't need any help thank you' and they'd taken that to mean 'yes, you can go home'.

But his little brother, up until, Seto checked the clock on the wall, three quarters of an hour ago, had stayed on the sofa, to one side of Seto's office, which had first been dragged up here years ago and he'd never got around to replacing it, working through employee files and paperwork until he'd gotten thirsty and offered Seto a cup of hot chocolate since it appeared that they were going to have a long night.

"Mokuba!" Seto was concerned now and was reaching for the intercom to page security when his mobile rang.

Several people had his number, but only one person had the ringtone that was now playing.

"Mokuba." He answered it quickly, wondering why Kisara had taken this moment to pop in.

"Not even close, Kaiba."

He knew that voice. "Bakura." He growled, "If you've done anything to Mokuba, I swear I'll…"

"I would put your brother on the phone." Bakura continued as if Seto hadn't spoken, "But he's not very talkative at the moment."

"Bakura!" Seto's roar would have impressed even Kisara.

"Perhaps if you come to the roof with your deck and Duel Disk, you might have more luck." Bakura sounded amused.

"I'll be there."

"You have ten minutes." Bakura put the phone down.

Seto snarled, pulling the drawer containing his deck and Duel Disk open so hard that the handle came off in his hand and was promptly thrown aside.

He knew what Bakura had done and he was not going to let him get away with it.

The Emergency power kicked in and Seto strode down the corridor and into the lift.

 _Geki just told me…_ Kisara started.

"I know." Seto growled.

 _The Tomb Robber goes too far._ Kisara sounded as angry as Seto felt.

The lift took exactly two minutes thirty seven seconds to go from the floor where his and his brother's office stood to the roof, and when the doors opened, he had to dart forward to catch his unconscious brother, who collapsed into his arms and led there, limply, his only movement the rising and falling of his chest. "Mokuba!"

When his brother didn't stir and Bakura started laughing, Kisara bellowed at Bakura and Seto gently led his brother down. "Free. Him. Now." Seto snapped, glowing at Bakura.

Bakura smirked at the power in his tone. "You want your brother back, you'll have to duel me."

"I don't know what you want, Bakura." Seto snarled, "But when I win, you'll free my brother and never go anywhere near him ever again!"

Bakura snorted, unconcerned, "What are you trying to do, talk me into throwing the duel due to boredom?"

Kaiba activated his Duel Disk, "Just get on with it!"

Bakura grinned and activated his own Duel Disk. "As you wish, Kaiba. It's time to duel!"


End file.
